Category: Success (Page 12 of 13)

On a Friday in May of 2022 a buddy of mine asked me to join him on a Pizza tour. First a Pizza tour is basically hitting a bunch of pizzerias in the same night, in our case we hit 8 places in 3 hours ordering 9 pies (4 people.) We chose the places based on ratings from a website/facebook groups etc. While what I should have learned is not to consume 2800 calories of pizza and 2 diet Snapple’s in one night, what I did learn was something different.

At the last stop Nola’s in Garwood NJ (which by the way had the best Pizza) we had a nice chat with the owner. Now Marc, the owner, asked a few questions, and with these simple questions he made our night. How did he do this, what did he ask, and why did it make our night?

He simply asked us what other pizzerias did we go to, and what we ordered. Immediately after we responded he asked his guys to put our pie back in for a few minutes, and topped it off himself with fresh parm. Let me tell you, the crust, the sauce the cheese, this pie was amazing. But that is not what made out night, it is what he told use while our food was cooking more.

He started to list other Pizzerias, and telling us the owners name, or who to ask for. He followed up with the line ’tell them Marc sent you..” Now why is this important, and what did he surmise from his questions. From asking questions, he understood what we were looking for simply put, what type of pizza meets our fancy. He took the time to hear we were on this quest, and gave use some key info. The Pizza business (well the high quality one) is a small community, and he knew the key people. He knew which place we would like, and also who to ask for to make sure we got good treatment. He really assured we would be back, not just for the food, but to support someone who takes care of his customers.

The question is can you find the right questions to ask the next time you meet someone to make a connection, to earn business, to gain trust, to get the job… If you take some time to think, ask, listen then respond with what you learned. Marc new how to do this simply, and more important he knew how to make the connection after asking. This is a lesson that I knew but lost along the way.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. 

I have heard for the longest time when finding a partner/spouse etc, the key is trust. You must trust them, or the relationship will fall apart. You can look inside your own relationships and understand whether or not trust was the reason it is still together or fell apart. There is this notion also of trust for you manager/company you are working for. If your boss no longer trusts you, they are checking everything you do and this in turn makes you feel like a child. If you don’t trust them, you probably are not putting in your best effort. It is amazing that that one concept covers so much.

But what I just made a connection is that there is a key relationship that is failing us all due to lack of trust. Our relationship with our government/leaders. And they are not doing anything to gain in back, in fact what is worse they are blaming the symptoms and not the cause. It is like when someone is sick and giving them cough syrup, not realizing they are choking on something. Funny when you try to fix the symptom now, you seem to actually anger the people you are trying to protect more. You give them the notion that you trying to silence them.

What is strange is that in work I have been taught (by very good leaders and managers) to answer “I don’t know.” It is better to answer that than to make up some lie. Or at least say “let me get you the right answer.” Seems like very different when it comes to some in government, they are making choices of “what they want us to hear” or “what will calm the masses” or even in some cases what will “rile up the masses” versus saying “I don’t know.”

In some cases it is calculated answer and it other cases it just is plain stupid. I am not going to pick out any specifics, those you can google. The problem is we don’t know when someone is doing it, and for what reason. For someone to say “I don’t know” makes them seem like not a leader.

But the outcome now is the lack of trust. And when this trust is missing people can find and make up their own truth. Or in many cases not believe what they are being told. Winning trust back is almost impossible (depending on how bad the loss is) Take someone cheating on you, how quickly would you trust them? It is not lock each government official can go to one and one therapy with everyone they broke trust with. So their answer is not to fix the cause, but put a band aid on the symptom.

We cannot look at Facebook or Twitter and say they are the cause of the problem without understanding what led to it. Misinformation existed from the time we started communicating, and with each new form of communication there was always push back that it will lead to problems. Jeff Jarvis on This Week in Google states this 100x over. From the Gutenberg press to radio, to TV, we are told that the medium of communication is the problem. Well whatever replaces Facebook and Twitter you are next to blame.

I don’t know what will fix trust but not addressing it is not going to solve the problem.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. 

I learned is that not everyone reacts the same way to adversity, uncertainty and challenges. But it is building the key relationships that will be with you doing the good times that gets you thru the bad times.

I know in writing the summary should be at the bottom, but I think if you just read the top statement, you start thinking. I was asked a question by a senior management if my team is productive working remote during covid. My response was to ask a question “define productive?” Of course this made him think, as well as myself think. I remembered when we first were told we were going to be 100% remote in early March, and somewhere around early April I was confident my team was working as we did pre-pandemic.

Well how did we go from productive to worry to back being productive so quickly. So I took a step back and thought about it. I have built this team over the past 5 years. I selected people who I thought had different skills, knowledge and experiences. One key item was could they work with our team. Are they willing to be part of something. I then spend the time making them fell they are a part of something. I may have experts in one technology or the other (I once asked one of them who they go to for help with Java…. he couldn’t answer) – but what I want is a group that will help the team, and get a great feeling that they helped another.

Once a year (usually in January) I lay out my expectations with the team. I do this with new hires also. The first expectation, is that I expect you to have fun and enjoy your job. Usually that gets a strange reaction. But it is first and foremost. Second that you should ask for help when needed, and more importantly help others when asked. I never thought at the granular level what this really meant. But from years of working in different organizations the teams I worked on that succeeded had this notion of helping.

What I missed in that having that culture of assisting others is that team members would build relationships. These relationships are easily built when times were good, when the day to day work was there. Yes there was pressure, and occasionally some stress, but most days it was working together to complete projects. Over the years as we added team members they go the same introduction and built these key friendships on the team. We all learned trust, respect and understanding.

When Covid hit, and we were now forced into crisis mode guess what happened? The relationships that were built during the good times well were leveraged during the crisis. The ability for people to work and help each other out was just there. There was no need to try to create a new culture. What we needed to do was find better tools, and the understanding of how to use them. Within about a month of the crisis, after the first initial shock, the team went back to running the same velocity it had pre-pandemic.

Yes, we had already moved to Agile so that some things were easy. Two week sprints, sizing, backlog grooming etc. (For those who don’t work in Agile done worry about that). But the key part of Agile is also constant communication. Normally it was supposed to be face to face, but once the team recognized which tools to use and when. The relationships took over, and the team was back to “norming.”

So the answer to my MD should have not been define productive, it should have been that it was the time we spent together building the relationships as a team made the transition during the pandemic back to normal very easy. I don’t know if those relationships are made during the pandemic work the same, does video suffice for face to face, can texting/messaging grow the same bond as in person. But I do know, if it wasn’t for the building blocks done before the crisis, we would not be as successful as we were during it.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.