I’ve had a lot of debates in the last few weeks about motivation and incentives. From money to benefits to praise to penalty and everything in between I’ve been asking people what they do to make their employees (or partners, peers, and friends?) motivated. But before I delve into some of these conversations, I want to make sure I’m clear what we’re talking about.

When looking for a definition of motivation, it immediately brings up the controversies surrounding the topic–i.e., the difference between personality and motivation. From wikipedia:

Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something. A motivated person can be reaching for a long-term goal such as becoming a professional writer or a more short-term goal like learning how to spell a particular word. Personality invariably refers to more or less permanent characteristics of an individual’s state of being (e.g., shy, extrovert, conscientious). As opposed to motivation, emotion refers to temporal states that do not immediately link to behavior (e.g., anger, grief, happiness).

In the business context, things get more muddied. At its most basic level, motivation is about a desire to get work done without having to push too hard. But invariably it gets into questions of quality of work, responsiveness, and helpfulness/proactive-ness. In other words, much as we want people to get things done, we want them to do things sooner than later, perform the work well, and genuinely seek out ways to stay occupied or improve things for the business. I know I’ve clearly just mired motivation with personality-traits like discipline, interest in quality, and loyalty…but how can they be separate? What would be the point of just getting things done if someone’s job is more than just cranking a widget? If it’s a high level task that has things at stake and many possible definitions of “completed”…?

And this again goes back to the wikipedia definition–there are issues of personality (which might arguably be considered nature) and issues of raw performance/throughput (which can sometimes be addressed through nurture aka incentives).

In conversations with peers about this, some brought up the point that it’s all about personality and that you can incentivize more work or new skills…but not a desire to do better or for the company to grow. Other issues were raised, such as how certain personalities may fit the skills or conditions of some jobs, and that those personality types actually go against some of the motivational aims. That is, people with a strong desire to please others aren’t necessarily the ones who can spend 12 hours straight on a single and at times monotonous project. There’s a big difference between the stereotypical techie/geek/engineer persona and the stereotypical salesperson or consultant. And there’s some basis to that.

So what is the answer to all of this? Can employees be motivated? Well, they can be given goals and incentives. That much is obvious. As for what kind of an effect monetary and psychological benefits can produce–well, I don’t know the answer to that.

In the last day I’ve had some emotional reactions to business-related decisions–one by me and one by a peer.

I think I’ve learned my lesson, which is essentially twofold (and I hope is valid):

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One of the problems being in a super small company is that a lot of decisions are made exclusively by the SBO (small business owner). But just because the final decision is made by the SBO doesn’t mean that the process of deciding needs to be an independent one. Here are two less obvious reasons for involving other people in the process:

1. A scheduled meeting may make the SBO show up with the research needed to make a decision at the meeting (i.e, s/he has a deadline for completing the research)
2. A meeting creates accountability that would not exist if the decision were made solely between the SBO and the SBO.

The result of these two items is often that a decision will be made sooner than it would have if the SBO had made the decision him/herself.

In the past (and to this day) I work with outside consultants and close friends to help make important decisions. But I don’t think I’ve relied on my coworkers enough for decisions that don’t relate to specific projects they’re involved with. For instance, when automating a client’s proposal process we might discuss what custom features that particular client needs. However, rarely will I sit down with coworkers to brainstorm what general features most proposal processes should incorporate.

As such, many of the bigger processes for SET (i.e., the things that don’t relate to specific projects but are still day-to-day operations) that I’d like to script out never get done. There’s not much push and I don’t like wasting people’s time outside the company with them.

The answer I’m suggesting here is to look at coworkers who are there anyways and bring them into these projects just like any other project.

I see that many of my larger clients decide everything in meetings. It’s not the best approach–taking people away from their work for a decision that’s not particularly relevant to them. But it does bring accountability into the picture and it alleviates procrastination.

I think that in the coming months I’m going to have more conversations/meetings with coworkers about things I’m working on–just to force me to make some decisions sooner than later. Even if I know I could do it myself, it’ll force the decisions to take place sooner. And, if all goes well, we’ll likely arrive at better conclusions and everyone will feel more a part of the team.

I hear people talking all the time about how different Word’s interface looks. But the skeleton of documents looks completely different as well. Here are some initial observations on the differences in default fonts/behavior:

Here’s how it looks:

This is a huge change. People aren’t used to having the cursor skip a line when they press Enter. (Even though After Spacing is more precise and better maintains consistency). I wonder how long it’ll take people to find this command:

On the one hand, they’ll find it and fix their problem…but then if they use it I think people are going to have trouble deciding when to use the Before command when to use the After command. I’m just afraid consistency is going to be difficult for people to achieve at first–when things are unfamiliar and the old way no longer ways.

Well, Microsoft, you’re certainly going to give me work as a trainer…

I’ve recently upgraded my primary workstation to Office 2007, Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 2. I took the necessary precautions, but honestly everything has worked out smoothly (partly because I’d been using the products in our demo environment for some time). Okay, the only problems I’ve run into are Treo sync issues and Firefox crashing. But while these upgrades are likely fodder for their own post, I’d just like to thank Microsoft for finally allowing the user to resize the Cross-Reference window. I’ve complained about this for years–nothing was more painful than a cross-reference window that was tiny and constantly lost its place when inserting references. Finally it’s been fixed–both problems! Thank you, Microsoft.

We’ve all heard the mantra that a business must grow or die. Over time it’s begun to sink in. At first it was just me working too many hours, then it was contractors, then it was employees + contractors. And at each phase there was always a point where I worked too much. Now is one of those times.

Grow the business I must do–or sure as I heck I’ll be the one that takes the fall.

I bet no one’s following this site just now, but I assure you it’s not because I haven’t had things to share or that I’ve lost my motivation. It’s that I haven’t had anything worthwhile to say. The web is full of ideas from all sorts of people and I didn’t (and probably still) haven’t found a voice that I like hearing out of my blog.

This issue of grow or die is one that I have to focus on. It’s probably a big part of the reason why I haven’t been writing. It’s certainly what’s been usurping my time. Or rather, the fact that I don’t have time. It’s the evening and I haven’t paused from work-related things yet today. If I want to be happy I need to give SET a chance to live on its own:

SET must grow or it won’t ever get a real chance to live.

Four and a half years ago I decided to start a company. Within six months it was able to pay for my livelihood. Within a year or two I was debt free. But if I had just found a job in the tech-world I could have made more money quicker. If it’s taken me this long to be where I am then I need to have something to show for it. And what that thing must be is not me, and not some material object–that thing must be greater. I need to be able to say five years from now that SET exists completely outside of me.

So this blog post is me putting my foot down. Maybe it’ll mean that I write more here. Maybe it’ll just sit here as a landmark. But it’s time to grow.

After getting frustrated by the way we vendors can be treated either at conferences or when in the prospecting stages, I thought I’d throw out a few reasons to be nice to the people who are soliciting your business…

1. You’re a vendor, too. Some part of your company is after some sort of sale, and what goes around comes around.
2. Price has a lot to do with convenience. If you want to do business with a vendor, you BET the price they calculate will have something to do with the degree to which you’ll be a pain-in-the-***. And this isn’t immoral–time is money and if you make a vendor’s life difficult then they’ll waste time working with you. They deserve to be compensated when you’re wasting their time.
3. Even if you don’t need them now and may never be able to pay them in the future, they may very well be able to assist you in some five minute problem down the road that they otherwise wouldn’t give you the time of day for. All because you were nice way back when.
4. Vendors are people, too. Yes, really. Even salespeople are people.
5. Being a vendor is making a living. You may not sell to people, but vendors aren’t innately evil. There’s a big difference between telemarketers calling during dinner and a vendor soliciting your attention after paying $1500 to attend YOUR conference for a day. By paying your dues they at least deserve a couple minutes of your time.
6. Vendors serve a purpose. I know, it’s hard to believe, but every once in a while someone is selling something that WILL make your life easier, your business more productive, and drive your own profits. Low and behold their company is actually in business for a reason! And maybe you’re the perfect fit.
7. Small companies and big companies, titles or no titles–we’re all worthy of a few words. You may get excellent service from a large company. A small company may enjoy the rare business of a large company and thus exceed the expectations of the large organization. We get wrapped up too often by titles and organization sizes. So what if you’re a director at Verizon and he’s a salesperson for Mom & Pop LLP…it doesn’t mean that you’re making more money or are any better qualified to perform your job. People deserve respect.
8. You didn’t know everyone once. At networking events it’s easy to stick by those you know. Think back to that painful time when you didn’t know anyone. That vendor over there is new to the area, new to the job, etc. When they say hello they may not even want your business–maybe you can be the one who introduces them to a few people…they’d never forget you for that.
9. Even the competition is good to know. When you get to know and build relationships with your competitors, more than likely there will be a time when they’ll actually recommend you as a better fit.
10. The next time you’re at a networking event, that vendor may be the popular one who gets to introduce you to some people.

This morning I listened to one of the local podcasts I’ve been experimenting with, published by a Maryland newspaper called The Business Monthly. In the most recent show they interviewed Edward McMillan, the author of a new book titled Policies & Procedures to Prevent Fraud and Embezzlement. McMillan brought up some strikingly easy ways to prevent accounting fraud that every business should consider. I can only imagine that most people are like myself and have given little consideration to fraud taking places under their noses. The truth of the matter is that, regardless of the likeliness of it happening, there are a few basic steps that can be taken to prevent it. I highly recommend listening to the interview (starts at 11:15 on the podcast), but here’s a summary of McMillan’s over-the-air recommendations for fraud-preventive practices:

1. Have your business’s bank statements mailed directly to you (the owner / principal) rather than directly to the company or the accountant/bookkeeper. Take a couple minutes each month to quickly look through the deposited checks to make sure that everything seems legit. Then, pass them along to your accountant or bookkeeper.
2. Consider “bank lockbox” for mailed invoice remittances. In other words, for a small fee, you can send a return envelope with your invoices that will allow your customer to send their payment directly to your bank (though this remains transparent to your customer). This restricts the ability for someone to deposit company-directed funds into an account with a similar or identical name at another bank.
3. Consider a “Positive Pay” service for all checks/payroll. This fairly common bank service enables your check writing activities to synchronize with your financial institution’s record of your account. This prevents common fraud tactics like someone copying a check and attempting to deposit it twice, or someone depositing a vendor’s check into an account with a slightly different payee name. Everything about the outgoing check will be monitored to alert you when things don’t match up.
4. Consider having two-signers on all checks. A second pair of eyes makes it less likely for an altered check to get out, and makes forgery more difficult.
5. Use direct-deposit for payroll. Direct deposit makes it very difficult for someone to put a nonexistent person on the payroll. Most people who create fake people on a payroll will use a check cashing service because there’s no audit trail when they cash these checks. However, with direct deposit, any attempts to funnel money elsewhere will be tracked…thus it’s much less likely for someone to attempt.

McMillan went on with ideas for how to approach situations where fraud might be a question, and the role of a CPA/employee in the finances of one’s business. This is all important advice for me to consider, so I thought I ought to share it with some others who could equally benefit.

I must confess to be quite enamored with the latest round of Mac advertisements, even though they poke fun at PCs. The ads keep things simple and hone in on some very specific ideas. As Niall Kennedy explains:

The messages are simple and conversational with just one or two competitive points each. Less viruses, less restarting, better applications built-in for editing photos and websites, as easy as your iPod, simple connectivity, and a really good value are the themes communicated throughout.

Niall Kennedy has recently joined Microsoft’s Windows Live team. I spend most of my day consulting and developing solutions around Microsoft products. But there’s something about the simplicity of the Mac, or at least their advertising, that it’s hard not to love. Many of you probably saw this video (supposedly created by Microsoft) describing what would happen if Microsoft designed the iPod’s packaging, and it’s in many ways dead-on–Microsoft, as evidenced in their failed Origami campaign, just doesn’t have the innovative branding & marketing that they should.

I think that Microsoft and the PC community have a leg to stand on, and look forward to the day when their advertising and PR rivals Apple’s. If you look at the media right now, all the buzz is against Microsoft (what’s going on with the ultramobile PCs, the delays in Vista, the latest Internet Explorer vulnerabilities), but Microsoft has things that could theoretically turn that around: Continue reading…

Last week I was lucky enough to see Chuck Geschke, a co-founder of Adobe Systems, speak at Loyola College in Maryland. Not only was he passionate and insightful, but he offered some lessons that I found particularly valuable. His main message was that if you treat your customers, vendors, and employees with respect and kindness then they won’t come back to bite you when you need them. However, one of his specific analogies I found to be particularly helpful immediately afterwards. I’m likely going to butcher its explanation, but please don’t let it reflect poorly on him. He explained that

Engineers can often be classified as Arrow Shooters, Scouts, and Road Pavers

Arrow Shooters are the ones who see an idea in the distance as a worthy target. They’re the visionaries who recognize a possibility for a new product but aren’t necessarily the best suited to determine how to get there or whether there will be financial rewards in the end.

Scouts are the people capable of surveying the market, considering what resources need to be assembled, and determining if there’s a viable path to the target. They wouldn’t know where to look if it weren’t for the arrow shooters, and they’re not necessarily the folks who can dig in and make the product happen.

Road Pavers are those who get their hands dirty with the real development. With a little bit of the overall vision and some general landscape of the situation, they’ll get you from point A to the target. And if they’re a great road paver they’ll be able to step one foot in front of another until they get things done, on schedule and on budget.

Mr. Geschke used this analogy to explain one of the ways that Continue reading…