Jack of all Trades versus Specialist of One

This is a topic that I’ve been torn over since high school.  I think maybe I was a good all rounder, but never excelled – like truly excelled, world record holder, Olympic winner, ever.   Don’t get me wrong, I think I am “good” at stuff (and don’t let anyone tell you I’m not), a good mother, a good worker, a good friend; but is just good, good enough?  Most people I know want to be the best at something, just one thing, my 4 year old son (and possibly a couple of my colleagues) misguidedly think they are the best at what they do, we all know there’s no point trying to convince them otherwise, that’s just them.

What are the obvious differences?  I think a specialist is in a great position for a career.  Imagine permission to focus on one pure thing at a time, for a time.  Specialists also often have more negotiating power with employers and can afford their own terms.  And of course you would want to employ a specialist to perform quality and specific jobs.  For example, would you get a cosmetic surgeon to do your hip replacement? No thanks.

Could it be that a specialist has more passion for their chosen expertise, leading to a more engaged job and better outcome?  Passion aside if you are an expert at something specific, whether that is science, art, or law it does put you in a difficult position to progress to a generalist position.  A new manager of a team, that gets catapulted out of their speciality, needs to step up to be a coach, a planner, and be accountable for outputs they have not personally handled.  More generalist skills might afford better outcomes.

I think a nice way to find an answer to this question is to look at output.  Generalists and specialists have both done outstanding things over time.  If fact to look at design as an example of a generalist producing amazing things, we could delve into the legacy that Charles Eames left behind.  Most people know of his greatness for furniture design; however he was also commissioned by large businesses and the American Government to help overcome huge challenges.   An architect by “trade” he continually engineered new ways to look at problems and was driven to find the best quality answers to challenges that weren’t easily solvable.  The opportunities that ignorance gave Eames no doubt contributed to some amazing outputs.

So what are you? Jack or Specialist?

The Secret of Motivating a Team

Once upon a time, many years ago, the cave men (our ancestors) strived for their Nirvana.  Their ultimate life achievement was to stay alive as long as possible and to pro create. In order to do this they needed to have an available source of food and water and their biggest want was for varying degrees of shelter and protection.  Their basic physiology worked with them, instincts were highly sharpened and the body on the ready to react to any potential threat.  The driving motivational force was to stay alive. So how has determining motivation factors become so complicated?  What do employees want, what motivates them?  It’s not just about the money we are told.  Is it what they plan to do with that money?  Reward comes in many forms, staying alive included - gaining a better result, getting a thank you from significant stakeholders, having a day off, clear role definition, respect, a thank you lunch, or straight up good manners and etiquette.

Nirvana is bigger, broader, and much more individualised these days.  What motivates a team is extremely important in the work place, because happy people equates to better health and energy for the individual, better outcomes for the business and it's also contagious.  It is the key cog in a never ending cycle of happy – productive - profit-reward - ... repeat again. What is the secret motivational factor that is going to get your team over the line?  Unfortunately it's not as easy as sprinkling pixie dust around, it takes lots of insight, buckets of understanding and gargantuan amounts of work.  

Richard Branson does it well and has again simplified his advice into 7 steps for managing people in this week’s BRW (December 7^th 2011, p.13). Keep your team informed, define the rules for business, focus on priorities, provide clear roles, champion employees’ ideas, learn from mistakes and move on, and finally, celebrate successes every day.  I’m not embarrassed to say that I’ve missed the mark on all of these things at some time (and maybe some of them all of the time). If you think you are doing all these things perfectly all year around it might be time for a bit of a sense check.  A thorough 360 degree review can help point you in the right direction. 

I think what is missing in the search for the best motivational strategy for a team, and indeed in the search for happiness, is put beautifully by a writer and art critic who died in 1900, John Ruskin.  The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. 

So live in the moment and enjoy the journey you are on right now. 

Are there any flexible work places?

Hasn't the world moved on? 20 years ago it was very odd to have dad stay home with the kids, cook, clean or do the weekly shop, now it's almost the norm.  Rarely would mum trundle off to work when bub turns 3 or 6 months, she was home for the family.  Workplaces of course are becoming more accommodating to mothers and moving with the times, maternity leave policies are changing, the government is chipping in to get us mum's back to work sooner and part time options are offered in every other classified advert on SEEK.  Roll back. hang on, no I don't think they are.  I don't think that many organisations are actually wanting to "put up" with  part timers, and to be honest I don't think it's just mums that are looking to work school hours, there are possibly lots of Gen Y's who don't really "strive" to work 50 hour weeks while they climb the corporate ladder, so to older employees who may want to "wind down", but not be forced to retire.

We hear about fantastic options for workers, job share, part time, work from home, but is it a fantasy and what's in it for employers anyway? 

Advertising for a part time position or two, when there is a full time position to be filled is not exactly going to excite any organisation, the costs involved in induction, insurance, safety and admin per head doesn't go down if a person is part time. But can those costs be offset with any benefits, I believe they can (disclaimer that I haven't studied HR, nor do I know the intimate workings of the company GL when it comes to personnel costs)?

On the whole, part time workers have the flexibility to fit the rest of their life into the days they are not working, so ongoing medical appointments, home repairs or waiting for the telstra guy can all be scheduled on non working days, the extra hours employers pay for this time to the full timer can add up.  Sick days and illness rates tend to be less pro rata, because the part timer has more opportunity to be ambulant and get more fresh air and vitamin D, and important mental health benefits that ultimately translate to reduced sick days. Part timers in general are appreciative of the compromise a company makes and in turn often more committed to the business they work for.  And the part timer often spends non working days addressing an office issue, whether on the phone or online, they are not usually going to ignore an urgent question or call out. All these thoughts point to a much improved productivity pro rata by the part timer. So why are more businesses not offering this flexibility, why are even the most obvious places like child care centres, nursing roles and retail shops still making it difficult for mothers to work a school day if they want to?

What can we do to live these changing values and not just acknowledge them? Any wisdom?

Is it on sale?

Who are the people that buy products on sale and what is the difference between them and loyal consumers? Who provides the most value to the products or brands? As a marketer I am extremely concerned when it is suggested the only thing left to do is to discount. Unless of course I was marketing a discounted brand model, like say Jetstar (recently hash tagged as Jetstarsucks). Then it would be perfectly legitimate because we truly would have nothing else to give the consumer except the cheapest possible price ... and because of this the minute that a consumer could book a cheaper flight they would. So for a discount strategy to work well it has to be a consistent approach, the business has to be "set up" to regularly deliver a discount.

Once you start conditioning the customer on the hope of the big discount it is extremely difficult to successfully stop discounting. Like a chronic junkie everyone involved sees the benefits of coming off, but just can't execute it for very long. However as usual Tom Fishbourne's Groupon Post (12th June 2011) sums up promotions perfectly http://tomfishburne.com/2011/06/holy-groupon.html

"The sales windfall is tempting, but cautionary tales abound. One cafe owner recently described a Groupon promotion as “the single worst decision I have ever made“. Not only was it unprofitable and a bad fit for her business, it attracted mainly one-time deal hunters.'

Discounting is occuring in businesses more often than we might think, and not always with a profitable return to the bottom line. In terms of the brand, discount promotions are against the basic principles touted by marketing experts on how to build a brand and the benefits of doing so to a business. Does brand equity still hold value in a depressed retail environment? Maybe not, but also is a depressed retail environment a permanent declining one or is it cyclical. I'll be sure to ask Phil Ruthven (IBISworld chairman, and regular BRW columnist) next time I see him which one is more likely.

So do I have the answers? No. Have I ever had the balls to run a business, be a CEO or go it alone? No, I'm just one of those side liners that wants to comment on things I have little financial investment in. For what it's worth customer service needs to be any company's biggest priority - marketing can sell a dream, create a need, and put a solution in your face when you most need it. They can build a brand and work to cement an emotional connection to it, but at the end of the day if the products aren't available, if the quality is faulty, if the service is not available then maybe all that's left is to rebuild the business model (take out training, customer service, maintance, quality and push the bottom line in every possible area) and follow Jetstars lead.

Can you please advertise on TV?

Every day for some years my day to day job has been to convince people that advertising does work. However most of this time is spent convincing the sales department that advertising is not TVCs. The sales department in many companies I've worked with would love nothing more than to create TVCs and run them 12 months of the year in prime time. Sales to marketing, "yes we agree the target market is x, but can you explain again why TV isn't part of the campaign?" As we know TV is not always an option for smaller communication budgets and targeted communications campaigns. In fact not using TV means the agencies and marketing guys are working harder for their pound of flesh. Pause while eyes glaze over, or roll around. At this point going into the rest of the planning rationale is pointless; the only way to save the meeting from here is to put forward a discount deal or something quick and easy. At least give the sales guys something to work with! Thank you Tom Fishburne http://tomfishburne.com/2011/06/holy-groupon.html for your timely blog and accompanying cartoon this week about groupons, which is essentially the same as a blanket discount deal that I'm talking about here.

Marketing has evolved and changed with better tools for planning, measuring and communicating and the best way forward is work together with sales. This requires BOTH departments putting forward things they can do and own too, then together look at every angle until we can all see the best way forward to achieving all the key objectives. And that's not just this year's sales target either. Mr Fishburne finishes his blog with: Instead of rushing to “mark down”, think about how to “market up”. Create value rather than devalue. Instead of investing in a race to the bottom, invest in your brand’s experience.

So wouldn't it be lovely occasionally to hear a sales team put forward some options that they could own and that supports the brand position, “we could get the merchandisers to this or that, or the sales team will be taking every opportunity to reinforce a high service standard throughout their training process and reflect the brand values.” Or we could just sit around and debate the merits of TVCs again!

Do you have a personal filter to live by?

Ask most of the colleagues you've ever worked with, what kind of personality they think you have and would you agree or disagree with their answers? What if the questions were more specifically about your management, leadership, or team principles and how you behaviour? Personally I have known for eons that being more tactful would deliver amazing benefits to my interactions with people, both at work and personally. It has however taken the last 15 years of concerted effort to truly understand these benefits and only the last 12 months of implementing some more solid strategies to do it.

If you are still reading by now, you're thinking "what the?" The ultimate answer came from a very savvy colleague of mine and is all about creating your own personal filter. Once you have decided what your true values in life are (what you would live and die by) use them as your filter to guide the way you act and behaviour in every single circumstance everyday. Be true to your filter. It's a bit like creating your own personal religion, that only you can hold yourself accountable for.

To give an example around this, taking responsibility for my own destiny is one value I want to live by. Being a chronic victim is not a desirable trait. Therefore when I'm in a meeting and someone makes a comment or remark blaming my department for for an issue or mistake, I can chose to sulk around like a victim, complaining that no one understands and that I'm getting singled out. Or I could choose to accept the circumstance, or determine whether I can control, change or improve the circumstance.

Unfortunately like all good theory it took way, WAY, more to get it in to practice, and a lot of time now is still spent contemplating what should come out the other end of the filter. Thankfully I can refer back to my savvy colleague, who amazingly has the best answer every time - thank you. But I still live in hope that if I practice this technique enough it will eventually become part of me, an organic part of my personality. So I am now practicing to rise above my old petty ways by regularly asking myself "what else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve the results I desire?"

Do you have a guiding filter?

When work and home provide similar lessons

It appears to me that the more I read and experience, in terms of professional development, the more similarities can be drawn about what we do at home and what we do at work. Sound familiar?
October's Management Today had a great read about team development, by Peter Cullen and Terri Hunter. It likens the stages of a soccer training session for building a successful team.
Recently I have also read Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence". (And to be frank I think you need to have a fairly high Intellectual Intelligence to get through it). The reference to toddlers and children, to draw out examples is prolific. This book tends to focus on individual characteristics and how to adapt to them. This whole book, in my opinion, is based on a 12 month visit with an cognitive behavioural therapist (CBT), nothing wrong with that.
Another example, drawn from personal experience, was some time ago when I attended a "dealing with difficult people" seminar. That evening I had the pleasure of assisting at a 5 year old's birthday party. What I had learnt that day was so applicable for dealing with a bunch of boys at this party and gave me a good opportunity to try out a few tools.

The examples are endless. How about listening skills - how important is it to listen? I found myself reading books to my son the other night called, Listening, Sharing & Helping. Lots of examples of how to listen actively, the importance of acknowledgement, waiting until the other person has finished speaking and so on. Maybe I don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on courses, management magazines and books, instead just be way more present in the day to day activities of my own developing child. I'm definitely putting this method down on my personal development plans for the future.
The best advice from the article by Cullen & Hunter is that team commitment will come from a clarity of goals. And coming together as a team should only be done when joint work from the team is needed - if you bring your team together just for an update or informal session it could leave members uncommitted, overloaded with information, and lacking focus.

How often have you forced a meeting with no agenda and no winning outcome?