Improve My Business

Many folks are concerned about the state of the economy - locally, nationally, and internationally.  I see the same worries in some of my clients, but not in others; I’ve taken a closer look at these two groups of companies, and this is what I’m seeing (unscientific, but interesting nonetheless):

Worried companies — I’m defining worried companies as the ones who are not in good shape from a Quality standpoint.  Oh, their final product quality is fine; it’s the processes that could use some sprucing up.  Not sure if this sounds like your company or not:

• Your final quality product or service is fine; customers are overall happy.
• however, your company often is jumping through hoops to make this happen.  It sometimes takes extraordinary effort to deliver on time — overtime, extra work being done, or even hand-carrying the order through the line.

• When a change comes through, it requires a lot of special attention to be done ‘right’.  It’s not a normal occurrence, and really puts a strain on your organization.

• When a key person is absent (vacation or sick), the organization has trouble delivering with the same efficiency.

• Everyone spends time and energy determining who made the mistake, before asking why the mistake was made, or how to fix the mistake

By contrast, un-worried companies have a noticeably different set of situations:

• Your final quality product or service is fine; customers are overall happy.
• It’s no problem for your company to deliver top quality products and services; it’s routine for your organization.

• When overtime is needed, it’s done with the understanding that this is a temporary situation, and everyone pitches in.

• Absences, both planned and unplanned, barely cause a ripple in the smooth operations of the organization, as all critical work is documented, cross-trained, and backed up as appropriate.

• The organization is more concerned about fixing the problem than fixing the blame.

So, what are the steps that companies can take?

1. They can document the nebulous processes, review the existing processes, and ensure that critical steps in a process are documented and are correct.  (Documenting and leaving on a shelf to get dusty is a common, and useless, situation I see in some areas…sigh…)
2. They can use this time to tighten up their internal overall process flow once step #1 has been done — analyzing it for redundancies, streamlining, and ways to make it more efficient.  Do multiple areas in your organization do almost the same thing?  Are there more than one ‘right’ ways to do a certain process?  Can it be streamlined to deliver the output in less steps, or with lower defects?
3. They can spend this time to do training - formal training to bring up their employees’ skills; cross-training to ensure that absences are easier to handle; corporate knowledge transfer so when the guru goes on vacation or (gasp!) retires, the knowledge doesn’t walk out the door with him; management training to spruce up your managers’ interpersonal skills so they can handle the questions from nervous employees better; teamwork and teambuilding to let employees know that they are valued, and that working as a team is the best chance you have of staying in business; and a host of other training that I’m sure you can name immediately.

Interestingly, the client who are calling us are the ones that fall into the second group - they continue to focus on “business as usual”, streamlining, becoming more efficient, requesting training, delivering higher quality both internally and externally, etc.  The worriers?  Well, let’s just hope that they don’t lose my phone number as they run around with worried looks on their faces and gloom and doom in their hearts.

Technorati Tags: downturn, economics, efficiency, quality, Streamlining, training

I am a recent convert to graphics - mind maps, flow charts, diagrams, you name it, I love it.  Why?  Because as I work with more and more folks, in more and more different industries (and countries), I see that graphics makes a HUGE difference in comprehension speed.  Not comprehension necessarily, but in the speed that the idea or concept is transferred.  Let me give you an example — I was talking to a client about the need for a data repository to capture lessons learned. I started off explaining how it works — and it took me forever (well, OK, 4 slides) to get the idea across with all of the steps involved.  To make matters worse, since I was working with a translator, she had to understand the ideas as a whole so she could interpret my remarks correctly.

I whipped out my trusty pen and paper, and drew her a quick graphic - and we were able to convey the entire concept in one slide.  Unfortunately  I can’t figure out how to embed a graphic from ppt into this blog… any help from the technorati? but if you send me an email (info@mcdcg.com) I’ll shoot you a copy of the slide…

So, obviously, I’m a big fan of graphics.  What’s your preference?

Technorati Tags: understanding

I was potentially stranded by two natural events during my return flight from China - the typhoon threatening to hit Taipei, Taiwan; and the hurricane (Ike) threatening Texas.  Turns out that Ike was no threat since I wasn’t flying through Houston; however, the typhoon delayed me in Hong Kong (transit city only - just ‘flying through’ as I had no business in HK this trip).

Long story short - EVA Airlines would do nothing for me - not even give me 1 HK dollar for a phone call although they gave me a non-toll-free number to call to rebook since they ‘couldn’t help me’ at the counter (WTF?!!?).  [Image:  Mary wandering through airport asking "do you speak English?" and finally finding someone who does, who explains why I can't dial the phone number correctly - the number provided included the area code, but since it was a local number, I was dialing too many digits...]

I went to travelers aid and found out that Cathay Pacific had a flight leaving in 2 hrs, directly to San Francisco.   After getting a persistent busy signal from EVA, I went to Cathay, whipped out the ol’ AmEx Gold Card, and bought a one-way coach ticket for a whopping $1600+.  My reasoning:

• I didn’t have anyplace to stay in Hong Kong, and delays were predicted at 2-3 days.  So, that’s 2-3 days at a HK hotel, with attendant food, transportation, etc.
• I had clients to service on Monday, and if I was delayed, would have to cancel or postpone.
• To top it off, it’s the mid-Autumn festival this weekend in China, which means that everyone travels, hotels, transit, etc. are all super-busy (imagine 3 day weekends in the US, to get an idea of airline lines/hotel bookings) so I was concerned that I’d be gouged for a hotel while waiting for the flights to clear (predicted at 1-3 days, I’m guessing 2-3 at a minimum).

Sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and make something happen - even if it’s not in the original plan.

Technorati Tags: china, flexibility, hong kong, travel

I’m sorry I haven’t gotten around to blogging more often - if only I could blog via Vulcan mind meld, or some other “Think it and it actually happens” method… as I’ve thought of a million different great ideas for blogs in the past couple of weeks…

To go back to the beginning:  I left my gorgeous new home in Austin, TX back a while ago - in fact, the week before Labor Day, and went to Dallas and Los Angeles for work for a week, then on to China.  OK, so you’ve got the picture - not many places in the US bigger than either the Big D or LA.  Then, I flew to Taipei, Wuxi, and Shenzhen in China.  These cities make the previous two look like quaint little towns — Shenzhen, where I am now, is a city of 18 million (so they tell me) - and this was all open land 30 years ago.  Shenzhen was built specifically to help China enter the (then) 20th century, and is home to several large high tech businesses (I should know - I’m at one of ‘em that employs 50,000 engineers, and across the highway from another, that employs 200,000, mostly operators/unskilled labor.  They each have their own exit off the highway, as they are larger than several cities back at home.)

Now, despite this, there are very obvious differences between the US trip and the China trip.

US trip:  client affiliated hotel was the Fairmont in Dallas - top shelf, great service, etc.

China trip: affiliated hotel is a ‘business hotel’ on campus (think: dorm room with double bed - and I use the term ‘bed’ loosely as it is only a box spring on a frame - no mattress unless you ask (and even then they bring you a 1″ mattress- literally, 1 inch!))

US trip:  Hertz rental car is major form of transport that McDCG uses

China trip:  both ends of the spectrum — car and driver meets me at airport and whisks me away to my hotel; but otherwise, to get to work I have a nice 15 min brisk walk each way daily (this is where I get lots of blogging ideas - the walk is invigorating).  Knowing how much rain Shenzhen gets, I packed some  rubber clogs and an umbrella so I can slog in clogs rather than get my business shoes wet.

US trip:  go to client with laptop, swap files via thumb drive, connect to client network wirelessly.

China trip: go through 10 min procedure every day - twice (on way in and on way out) where laptop is taped up everywhere - over network ports, cards, USB drives, and CD drive - with tamper-proof tape to ensure that I cannot copy anything.

US trip:  meal choices were varied, in both price and selection

China trip:  the local cafeteria, or the local restaurant on campus.  The cafeteria serves Chinese food; the local restaurant has an eclectic western menu - if I go there, I’ll usually get an omelette for dinner since my other choices are hamburgers or other breakfast foods, in addition to chinese foods.

US trip:  a nice 45 min lunch

China trip: a 30 min lunch followed by a 1 hour nap (no word of a lie - they play music at the end of the hour to wake everyone up).  The lights are all dimmed, and there is no noise there (not even the quiet tap of my keyboard as I was politely asked to rest at my desk quietly, which I now do.)  Many if not all of them have mattresses and/or cots to sleep on.  Since they are a short people in general height-wise, most sleep under their 6 ft. desk with room to spare.  I could get into this - don’t know if my US clients would be thrilled to see me roll out a nap mat after lunch though…

US trip:  go into a store, buy something for posted price

China trip: go into a vendor stall, select what you want, roll eyes when they tell you the price, pretend to walk out, let them ask you for “best price” which you lowball even lower than you want to pay, and start negotiation from there.  I look upon it as a sport and I’m pretty good at it - my chinese hosts told me that they were ‘impressed’ with my skills at the market yesterday, telling me I’m as good as a Chinese person at it! High compliment indeed!

US trip:  everyone lives somewhere else, usually in a good-sized house

China trip:  most live in campus dorms or in small/tiny apts and take company-provided buses to work if remote.

All in all, I’m enjoying the trip here, including the walks to and from work and the naps (not sure if I sleep or not, but I do slow down my breathing and let my muscles relax.)  Definitely a change of pace from big city life in the US.

More when I return next week, and discover if I go through culture shock again…

Technorati Tags: china, mcdcg, mcdonald consulting group, travel

Do you know anyone who blogs for blogging’s sake?  They blog b/c they haven’t had a post in a while, not because they have something to say?  I Freudian slipped and typed bogging, but that’s what this is, isn’t it?  Bogging down our servers, our emails, our tweets with useless stuff?

So let’s make a pact - no more bogging, only blogging.

Technorati Tags: blogging, twitter