That misspelled slip on an instant message chat says it all.

So many managers “hear to talk.”

They listen to find places they can interrupt, contradict, assert power, make a correction or effortlessly start talking on their own.

Take the time to actually listen.  So the next time you “hear to talk” you really are there.

On the Flipside

The most effective managers do the opposite.

They “talk to hear.”

Spend time asking questions and move the conversation to learn what the person talking has to say. That is the benefit of working with a team - getting each person’s unique contribution.

Manufacturers in the retail supply chain are under increased pressure by retailers to cut costs. This is coming from Wal-Mart and other competitive big-box retailers.

One way to improve costs is to manage the production cycle with project management techniques.

I’ve seen creative departments radically improve their cycle-times, efficiency and responsiveness to customers by having a project plan in place for each creative process.  It has reaped huge benefits: upwards of 2x increases in productivity and speed.

Designers can do upwards of twice as much work.

The creative department can deliver finished product in half the time.

When a customer says “go” on a concept you’ve shown them, the project plan assures that you can hit the ground running.

More responsiveness, higher customer satisfaction, faster production with lower costs, these are the exact items demanded by competitive retailers.  And these are exactly the items project management can deliver for manufacturers in the retail supply chain.

I heard a great anecdote from Ed Brodow that sums up the importance, and power, of listening.

A women in England went on separate dates with two very famous people who had very different personalities, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.

Asked about her evening with Gladstone she said,

“he took me to the symphony and by the end of the night I felt like I was with the most sophisticated and smartest man in the world.”

And how about your evening with Disraeli? her friends asked.

“He took me to the opera. By the end of the night I felt like I was the most sophisticated and smartest woman in the world.”

Gladstone spent the evening talking about himself.

Disraeli spent his evening listening to her. Disraeli made her feel great.

This phrase exemplifies the power of exclusion.

I heard it from a successful businessman. He started many projects and companies on his own because he was shut-out from other opportunities. By keeping him out, they created their own competition.

By excluding people, you create impediments to your project’s success.  It affects driven and capable people the most (who are exactly the people you want on your team, the linchpins).

Take the time to listen to people on your team. Make people feel included.

Thomas Friedman has an inspiring article in the NY Times on a virtual start-up.  Virtual companies are nothing new in the world of software and services.  What’s new here, though, is that this company is a virtual manufacturing company.

“‘Three guys with laptops’ used to describe a Web startup,’” writes Chris Anderson from Wired Magazine (as cited by Friedman). “Now it describes a hardware company, too” thanks to “the availability of common platforms, easy-to-use tools, Web-based collaboration, and Internet distribution. … Global supply chains have become scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony.”

In the world of the virtual manufacturing company, production capacity and manufacturing flow seamlessly to the cheapest source, much like programming services have in the world of software development. Producing a widget is no longer that special. It can be done in many places at a relatively low cost. Like the name of the essay in Wired Magazine says “Atoms are the New Bits.”

And this is the kind of thing that can actually save manufacturing-based economies like Detroit.

What?

You may ask how it could possibly be a good thing that other countries or regions can produce high quality goods at cheaper prices and that companies can by from them so easily. How is that good for Detroit?

In a word: Value.

You have to look at where the value is.  Where wealth is created, where the unique advantages is.  It isn’t any longer in producing run of the mill goods.  The value is in creating a really great product.

Virtual manufacturing means that a clever innovator with a good idea can experiment with a new product and produce that product for a lot less money than it used to take. Engineers and product managers can get a new ventures off the ground with much less capital and much faster than ever before. It means that the amount of risk involved in manufacturing is less than its ever been.

It means its easier than ever to create a valuable product. It is easier than ever to create a product that is truly remarkable.

All of that is great news for Detroit.

It used to be that only software and service businesses were cheap and easy to get off the ground.  From the 1970’s on the remarkable breakthroughs were in software or innovative financial products.  That helped create the success stories of Silicon Valley, Seattle and Wall Street.

The cost of getting a manufactured product off the ground was high. It made it risky to invest in or to quit the day job, as it were, to give it a try.

But now, that has all changed.  And that plays into the strength of the people in Detroit.

As the article states, this can be a huge engine for growth in the United States.

Invented and financed in the West, further developed and tested in the East and rolled out in both markets.

Inventing and managing the lifecycle of a manufactured product is right up Detroit’s alley.  And not just Silicon Alley. I’m talking about the straight, old-fashioned grease covered alley of Detroit’s past. The alley filled with mechanics, backyard tinkerers and engineers.

If mechanics, engineers and tinkerers can dream it up, it can now become a reality. And if there’s one thing we have lot of in Detroit -its mechanics, engineers and tinkerers.

It is up to them, and to each one of us, to help make it a reality.

A friend of mine consistently receives negative feedback from a manager.  It is a complete drag on his projects and his daily life. He is not alone.

Many people have managers that use negative feedback to get things done.  Instead of letting it drag you down, here are some guidelines to help.

Understanding negative feedback can help you dig yourself out from it.

There are two types of negative feedback.

• Guilt
• Shame

They both make you feel bad. But they are different.

Guilt is feeling bad about something you did.

Shame is feeling bad about yourself.

Guilt can be a productive tool for professional improvement.  Managers who use guilt are trying to get you to perform at a higher level or pay more attention.  With guilt, there is a way to make things right. The manager who gives these kind of negative comments should provide a clear path to how things should be done differently. To be constructive, the criticism shouldn’t focus on outcomes (”don’t screw up again”) but on techniques and processes (”next time, do x and y, instead of z”).

Shame is a tool of manipulation and control. It is destructive negative feedback. Managers who shame other people want to make them dependent and easier to push around.  With shame, the only way to feel better is to make the manager happy.  And there is no end to that road.

Sadly, there are managers who thrive on destructive negative feedback. It gets them the results they want and the power they crave. If you find yourself with this type of manager, you need to get out.   (Definitions courtesy of Ed Schild.)

Emotions can propel you. Emotions can bog you down.

Emotions hang on a framework of expectations.

Expectations hang on the plans we carry with us. Whether in our heads, in software or on paper.

Understand plans (and how they change over time) and you can achieve growth.

This applies to organizations and to individuals.

Planning is a critical component to being a successful innovator.

It sounds counter-intuitive.

You might think that innovation is all about inspiration and the eureka moment. But its not. Its about executing.  To paraphrase Seth Godin, real innovators ship. That is, real innovators get things done.  And often.  The more often you deliver something, the better you’ll become at delivering more in the future.  Your ability to innovate and implement real change will increase.

The problem with relying on inspiration is that it is often fueled by emotion alone. Soon, those emotions fade. Or, they become harder to generate as problems arise. Then you get stuck.

If everything is on the fly, you are always late.

You can never execute and ship as fast as your ideas come.  Rely on inspiration and you’ll get frustrated when things take longer than “now.”

You need to build project plans. You need to plan the next steps.  That way you won’t get frustrated when things take longer than “now.”  You’ll be able to keep moving forward even when you hit set-backs.

The plan will be in place. You’ll know where to pick up from and where you want to go.

You might have to modify it. Actually, you’ll most certainly have to modify it.  But you’ll have a baseline to move forward on.

The plan doesn’t have to be elaborate. In fact, I would caution against getting too carried away. Many great ideas never became reality due to “paralysis from analysis or over-planning and under executing.

How much planning is enough?

You’ll learn over time as you see one plan be too constrictive or the other too loose, and therefore useless.  Just be conscious of the plan and gauge its success at helping you deliver.  That’s one of the advantages of having a planning. You have something to tweak and improve.

Often enough, whether you can get the idea done or is more a reflection of your plan, and not of your idea.

By consistently measuring the outcome of different plans and tweaking the plan over successive iterations, you’ll find the right plan. You’ll find the mix that allows you to innovate and ship your ideas.

Not every idea you ship will be a hit.   But by shipping, you’ll at least be in the marketplace. You will be executing and delivering innovation. You will have the satisfaction and fulfillment of seeing your ideas through to their fruition.

This, in turn, will give you confidence to try the next idea. And the next. And soon, you will have a steady process to deliver innovation.

Good project management can be the missing piece in revenue growth.

Here is a simple test to know if project management could help you grow revenue:

How long does it take you to generate a list of all projects you’re working on?

If the answer is anything greater than 5 minutes, you could benefit from more formal project management and project management software.

A quick case study that demonstrates this point.

A client of ours targeted a division for revenue growth over the next 5 years. They allocated sales people and marketing dollars to capture the opportunity. They saw a market opportunity to grow this division significantly.

Management, though, was worried that the division wouldn’t be handle to handle the growth. They were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to fulfill all the new orders.

Why were they worried?  They asked a simple question.

They asked the head of the division to show them a list of all current projects.

The head of the division said she’d get back to them in a day or two.

That’s when red flags started to go off.

If it took the head of the division one to two days just to compile a list of what was going on, there was clearly no process in place.  They were flying by the seat of their pants. Without process, the division couldn’t scale. That’s why management was worried.

If growth came, they might get lucky at the beginning, like they have been. Key individuals and long-standing relationships could be relied on to push the work through.  But longer term, things will start to break. There are only so many items those key individuals can do. Tasks will fall through the cracks. Deadlines will be blown. Customers will be upset. And all the money spent acquiring new customers will go down the drain.

Project Management is a Foundation for Growth

Management knew they had to create a more mature and uniform process. They needed to formalize their processes into projects and implement project management software to keep things together and provide instant access to information. This initiative became part of the overall investment in revenue growth for that division, as critical as sales people and marketing dollars.

Once complete, the head of the division was able to generate a list of projects in one to two seconds, instead of one to two days.  The division was on firm footing to grow revenue.

So if you want to see if a lack of project management is holding back growth, see how long it takes to put together a list of all ongoing projects. If its anything longer than 5 minutes, you have a problem.