Search Results for: people skills

Ten Rules of Management Success from Sam Walton

February 2, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Sam Walton (1918–1992,) the iconic founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club, was arguably the most successful entrepreneur of his generation. He was passionate about retailing, loved his work, and built and ran Walmart with boundless energy.

“Made in America” is Walton’s very educational, insightful, and stimulating autobiography. It’s teeming with Walton’s relentless search for better ideas, learning from competitors, managing costs and prices to gain competitive advantage, asking incessant questions of day-to-day operations, listening to employees at all levels of Walmart, and inventing creative ways to foster an idea-driven culture. “Made in America” is also filled with anecdotes from Walton’s associates and family members—in fact, some of their opinions are less than flattering.

Former CEO of General Electric Jack Welch once said, “Walton understood people the way Thomas Edison understood innovation and Henry Ford, production. He brought out the very best in his employees, gave his very best to his customers, and taught something of value to everyone he touched.”

Here are ten insightful management ideas from “Made in America” with the relevant anecdotes from Walton or his associates.

When hiring employees, look for passion and desire to grow. Having the right skills and qualifications is no doubt essential in a potential employee, but a better predictor of long-term success and career advancement is his/her passion for learning new things, commitment to a task, and a drive to get things done. A former Walmart executive recalls, “Sam would take people with hardly any retail experience, give them six months with us, and if he thought they showed any real potential to merchandise a store and manage people, he’d give them a chance. He’d make them an assistant manager. They were the ones who would go around and open all the new stores and they would be next in line to manage their own store. In my opinion, most of them weren’t anywhere near ready to run stores, but Sam proved me wrong there. He finally convinced me. If you take someone who lacks the experience and the know-how but has the real desire and the willingness to work his tail off to get the job done, he’ll make up for what he lacks.”
Delegate and follow up. Delegation is indispensable; yet it remains one of the most underutilized and underdeveloped managerial skills. One element of effective delegation is consistent follow-up. Far too often, managers will delegate a task and then fail to follow up to see how things are going. Such failure to follow-up is tantamount to abdication of accountability for results, which still lies with the manager. Former Walmart CEO David Glass recalls, “As famous as Sam is for being a great motivator … he is equally good at checking on the people he has motivated. You might call his style: management by looking over your shoulder.”

Persist and rally people to the cause. Passionate managers demonstrate the energy and drive needed to rally their teams around a shared vision. They engage their employees with the same messages over and over, escalate their sense of urgency, and get their vision implemented quickly. Former Walmart CEO David Glass recalls, “When Sam feels a certain way, he is relentless. He will just wear you out. He will bring up an idea, we’ll all discuss it and then decide maybe that it’s not something we should be doing right now—or ever. Fine. Case closed. But as long as he is convinced that it is the right thing, it just keeps coming up—week after week after week—until finally everybody capitulates and says, well, it’s easier to do it than to keep fighting this fight. I guess it could be called management by wearing you down.”
Mentor, critique, and inspire employees. Mentoring employees is an effective way to improve employee performance and build trust and loyalty. Effective mentoring is not merely telling employees what to do. It is helping them broaden and deepen their thinking by clarifying their goals and asking the right questions. Effective mentoring is also about supporting employees as they learn and practice new skills and habits. Walton writes, “I’ve been asked if I was a hands-on manager or an arm’s-length type. I think really I’m more of a manager by walking and flying around, and in the process I stick my fingers into everything I can to see how it’s coming along. I’ve let our executives make their decisions—and their mistakes—but I’ve critiqued and advised them.”
Invest in frontline employees for better customer relationships. Much of customers’ opinions about a business come from the myriad interactions they have with customer-interfacing frontline employees, who are the face of any business. If a business doesn’t get these customer experiences right, nothing else matters. Walton writes, “The way management treats the associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers. And if the associates treat the customers well, the customers will return again and again, and that is where the real profit in this business lies, not in trying to drag strangers into your stores for one-time purchases based on splashy sales or expensive advertising. Satisfied, loyal, repeat customers … are loyal to us because our associates treat them better than salespeople in other stores do. So, in the whole Wal-Mart scheme of things, the most important contact ever made is between the associate in the store and the customer.”
Treat employees like business partners and empower them by sharing information. Effective managers foster open communication by treating employees as co-owners of the business and sharing operational data regularly. Managers empower employees by helping them understand how their contribution makes a difference, discussing opportunities and challenges, and encouraging them to contribute to solutions. Walton writes, “Our very unusual willingness to share most of the numbers of our business with all the associates … It’s the only way they can possibly do their jobs to the best of their abilities—to know what’s going on in their business. … Sharing information and responsibility is a key to any partnership. It makes people feel responsible and involved …. In our individual stores, we show them their store’s profits, their store’s purchases, their store’s sales, and their store’s markdowns.
Never be satisfied. There’s always room for improvement. Effective managers never rest on their laurels and are persistently dissatisfied with the status quo. They possess a pervasive obsession for discovering problems and improving products, services, and people. Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus recalls, “If you ask Sam how’s business, he’s never satisfied. He says, ‘Bernie, things are really lousy. Our lines are too long at the cash registers. Our people aren’t being helpful enough. I don’t know what we’re gonna do to get them motivated.’ Then you ask some of these CEOs from other retail organizations who you know are on the verge of going out of business, and they brag and tell you how great everything is. Really putting on airs. Not Sam. He is down to earth and knows who he is.”

Appreciate employees and give honest feedback. A key determinant of employee engagement is whether employees feel their managers genuinely care. Do the managers provide regular, direct feedback, both appreciative and corrective? Do they coach employees in their learning and career growth? Walton writes, “Keeping so many people motivated to do the best job possible involves … appreciation. All of us like praise. So what we try to practice in our company is to look for things to praise. … We want to let our folks know when they are doing something outstanding, and let them know they are important to us. You can’t praise something that’s not done well. You can’t be insincere. You have to follow up on things that aren’t done well. There is no substitute for being honest with someone and letting them know they didn’t do a good job. All of us profit from being corrected—if we’re corrected in a positive way.”
Listening to employee’s complaints and concerns could be a positive force for change. Effective managers provide their employees the opportunity to not only contribute their ideas, but also air concerns and complaints. By fostering an environment of open communication, managers who handle employee opinions effectively not only boost employee motivation, performance, and morale, but also benefit from learning directly about problems with teams, organizations, and businesses. Walton writes, “Executives who hold themselves aloof from their associates, who won’t listen to their associates when they have a problem, can never be true partners with them. … Folks who stand on their feet all day stocking shelves or pushing carts of merchandise out of the back room get exhausted and frustrated too, and occasionally they dwell on problems that they just can’t let go of until they’ve shared it with somebody who they feel is in a position to find a solution. … We have really tried to maintain an open-door policy at Wal-Mart. … If the associate happens to be right, it’s important to overrule their manager, or whoever they’re having the problem … . The associates would know pretty soon that it was just something we paid lip service to, but didn’t really believe.”
Learn from the competition. Effective managers understand that keeping tabs on competitors, copying their innovations as much as possible, and reaching out to customers the way competitors do is a great strategy for growing business. Sam Walton’s brother Bud recalls, “There may not be anything (Walton) enjoys more than going into a competitor’s store trying to learn something from it.” A former K-Mart board member recalls, “(Walton) had adopted almost all of the original Kmart ideas. I always had great admiration for the way he implemented—and later enlarged those ideas. Much later on, when I was retired still a K-Mart board member, I tried to advise (K-Mart) management of just what a serious threat I thought he was. But it wasn’t until recently that they took him seriously.”

Inspirational Quotations #617

January 31, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

The world does not have to change … The only thing that has to change is our attitude.
—Gerald Jampolsky

Mankind differs from the animals only by a little and most people throw that away.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Lying, a telling of beautiful untrue things, this is the proper aim of art.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understanding and our hearts.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

Fear clogs; Faith liberates.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind.
—Washington Allston (American Poet)

Many concerns now make part or the whole of their dividends from by-products that formerly went to waste. How do we, as individuals, utilize our principal by-product? Our principal by-product is, of course, our leisure time. Many years of observation forces the conclusion that a man’s success or failure in life is determined as much by how he acts during his leisure as by how he acts during his work hours. Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how he is likely to spend the latter part of his life.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The best hearts are ever the bravest.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

The secret to success is constancy to purpose.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing

January 19, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

During argumentation—i.e. when putting forward a point of view—your goal is to persuade your audience that your thesis is valid, engage them in your favor, change their opinion, and influence them to act as you’d like them to act.

The American literary theorist Kenneth Burke wrote in his Rhetoric of Motives, “Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric. And wherever there is meaning, there is persuasion.” Learning to make effective arguments is helpful in every facet of decision-making and sharing ideas with others—not only in verbal and written discourses, but also in marketing, sales promotion, crisis-management, storytelling, courtship, social etiquette, and education.

Some 2400 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote one of the most important works on argumentation. In his treatise Rhetorica, he explained that arguments are more persuasive when applied in three distinct but inseparable dimensions: ethos (credibility,) logos (reason,) and pathos (emotion.) He wrote,

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself … The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory.

There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions—that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.

Element #1 of Persuasion: Ethos (‘Character’ in Greek)

Aristotle contended that audiences are more likely to be convinced when an argument comes from someone of standing, repute, authority, and legitimacy:

We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is generally true whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided … It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatise on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasions; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.

Your ability to persuade depends on demonstrating that you are a credible authority on a subject. Credibility comes from your academic and professional credentials, social standing, integrity of character, and trustworthiness.

Ethos is also about how you express your expertise. Enhance your ethos by projecting confidence and paying attention to your mannerisms, dress, demeanor, tone, style, posture, body language, and crispness of your message. Appeal to ethos because your audience is likely to be persuaded if they believe you’re likeable and worthy of their respect. If you lack credibility, you must determine how to produce credibility, address your lack of it, or involve somebody credible who can vouch for your ideas.

Element #2 of Persuasion: Pathos (‘Suffering’ or ‘Experience’ in Greek)

As the saying goes, when the heart pulls, the head tends to follow.

Aristotle contended that persuasion also depends on making an emotional and imaginative impact on the audience by “putting the hearer into a certain frame of mind” (“ton akroaten diatheinai poos”):

Secondly, persuasion may come through the power of the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

To appeal to emotion, you must understand and relate to the needs, values, and desires of your audience. Identify and appeal to what motivates the audience to anger and happiness, what irritates them and leads them to fear, what animates them and arouses their empathy. Defense attorneys often use this technique: they try to appeal to a jury or judge’s emotions by invoking sympathy for the accused and swaying them into thinking that the accused has done little or no wrong.

Element #3 of Persuasion: Logos (‘Word’ in Greek)

Logos refers to the argument’s clarity and integrity. Aristotle stressed logic and the appeal to reason:

Thirdly, persuasion is effected by the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.

Appeal to your audience using logical consistency, analytical reasoning, rationale, and supporting evidence. Don’t just persuade your audience from your vantage point. Instead, construct a viewpoint that can assert your audience’s own objectives and goals.

Element #4 of Persuasion: Timing

Aristotle mentioned that timing of delivery is a fourth dimension of successful argumentation. Therefore, even if ethos, pathos, and logos are in place, efforts to persuade may fail if they are deployed at the wrong time.

These three kinds of rhetoric refer to three different kinds of time. The political orator is concerned with the future: it is about things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or against. The party in a case at law is concerned with the past; one man accuses the other, and the other defends himself, with reference to things already done. The ceremonial orator is, properly speaking, concerned with the present, since all men praise or blame in view of the state of things existing at the time, though they often find it useful also to recall the past and to make guesses at the future.

To persuade your audience, know where to focus the conversation—the past, present, or future. As the Greek didactic poet Hesiod emphasized in Works and Days, “observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”

Use Four Vantage Points to Improve Your Abilities in Argumentation and Negotiation

You can be more persuasive if you understand what truly moves your audience. Some people are swayed by logic, others by appeals to emotion, and still others quickly defer to those who seem to possess authority and expertise.

Aristotle’s ethos, pathos, and logos provide a clear, understandable, and easy-to-apply framework for developing argumentation. Although these three elements can be analyzed separately, they often overlap and work together. Often it may not be possible or useful to completely distinguish them.

Recommended Resources

Round up your persuasive skills by combining Aristotle’s technique with these recommended approaches.

Robert Cialdini’s best-selling books, Influence The Psychology of Persuasion and Science and Practice, identify six ways to persuade another person. Watch this and this YouTube videos for excellent summaries of these six principles.

reciprocity, when the other acts in expectation that his/her favors will be returned
commitment and consistency, when the other takes actions consistent with his/her self-image
social proof, when the other replicates the actions of others
authority, when the other acquiesces to authority even if the request is questionable
liking, when the other is persuaded by those whom they know, like, respect, and admire
scarcity, when an object becomes more desirable because it is in short supply

Simon Sinek’s Start with Why advocates that when pitching a product, service, idea, or proposal to an audience, you must start with answering why they should they care. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Sinek’s TED talk (this YouTube video) describes his concept of “The Golden Circle”—with the ‘why’ at the core, surrounded by ‘how,’ and the finally the ‘what.’
Richard Shell and Mario Moussa’s The Art of Woo recommends that people use relationship-based, emotionally intelligent approaches to persuade others of the value of their ideas to “win them over” rather than to “defeat” them.
William Ury’s The Power of a Positive No offers a “yes-no-yes” framework to (1) connect a situation, circumstance or dilemma to your core set of interests and values, (2) communicate your decision assertively and respectfully and yet obtain the most positive outcome for you and for others.
Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton’s popular book Getting to Yes offers an step-by-step plan of action for coming to mutually satisfactory agreements to conflict.

Effective Goals Can Challenge, Motivate, and Energize

January 12, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of my blog readers asked me to write more about goal-setting and performance against goals. In response, I studied the work of University of Maryland’s Edwin Locke and University of Toronto’s Gary Latham, two renowned researchers on goal-setting. Here is a summary.

Goals Impact Performance in Several Ways

Goals can help direct: A person’s goals should direct his/her attention, effort, and action toward goal-relevant actions at the expense of less-relevant actions.
Goals can help motivate: A person’s goals can motivate him/her to pursue specific outcomes. The person can be motivated only when his/her goals are sufficiently challenging and can nudge him/her to put in special efforts.
Goals can help persist: A person is likely to persist at his/her efforts when his/her goal is worthy enough to attain.
Goals can trigger learning: Goals can either activate a person’s knowledge and skills that are relevant to performance or induce the person to acquire such knowledge or skills.

Best Practices for Goal-Setting and Performance

Specific, difficult, but attainable goals lead to better performance than easy, vague, or abstract goals such as the general-purpose exhortation to “do your best.” Hard goals motivate because they require a person to achieve more in order to be content with his/her own performance.
Goal specificity and performance share a positive, linear relationship. When a person’s goals are specific, they direct and energize his/her behavior far more effectively than when they are vague and unspecific.
Performance is directly proportional to the difficulty of a goal as long as a person is committed to the goal, has the requisite ability and resources to achieve the goal, and does not have conflicting goals.
Taking on excess work without access to the necessary resources to realize the goals (“overload”) can moderate the effects of goals.
A team performs best when the goals of the individuals on the team are compatible with the team’s goal. Therefore, when an individual’s goals are incompatible with his team’s, his/her contribution to the team will be subpar.
The goal need not be in focal awareness all the time. Once a goal is accepted and understood, it resides in the periphery of the person’s consciousness and serves to guide and give meaning to his/her actions.
While long-term goals are relevant and helpful, most people find short-term goals more effective because they channel a person’s immediate and direct efforts and provide quick feedback. This suggests that it’s best to divide long-term goals into concrete short-term objectives.
Self-efficacy plays a key role in the achievement of goals. A person is much more likely to buy into and pursue goals if he/she believes himself/herself to be competent enough to reach those goals. The most effective goals must therefore embrace a person’s strengths—such goals help him/her strive towards success by leveraging the best of who he/she is and what he/she can do.
One reason a person may lack self-efficacy is his/her past failures with undertaking similar goals. Such a person may believe that he/she may never reach his/her goals and should first undertake a series of small, near-term goals instead of difficult, distant goals. The person’s success with a series of smaller goals can boost his/her confidence and can inspire him/her to undertake larger goals. For example, a chain-smoker will find the goal of smoking cessation daunting. He should therefore focus on smaller goals like gradually cutting down the number of cigarettes he smokes every day. Experiences of goal achievement can build up momentum to tackle the larger goal.
Goals are not effective by themselves. Feedback is the most important moderator of goal-setting because it tracks the progress of performance towards goals and creates new sub-goals. If a person finds his/her progress towards a goal unsatisfactory, the feedback he/she receives can drive corrective efforts to develop new skills or pursue the goal in a new way.

Books I Read in 2015 & Recommend

December 23, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In addition to a number of Rick Steves’ and Lonely Planet books for my summer-long travels across Europe, here are a few books that I read in 2015 and recommend.

Biography / Business: Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon is an engrossing chronicle of the obsessive hard-driving personality of its founder-CEO and the company that has played the pivotal role in the shift from brick-and-mortar retail to online retail.
Biography / Leadership: Starbucks founder Howard Schultz’s Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul is an interesting depiction of Starbucks’ turnaround after Schultz returned as CEO in 2008. Read Onward for a case study of the founder’s syndrome in action and a self-congratulatory portrait of a charismatic entrepreneur and brilliant corporate cheerleader. Read my summary.
Biography / Business: Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is a biography of America’s current most audacious entrepreneur and Silicon Valley’s most prominent innovator. While the book details Musk’s bold leadership decisions, it also serves as a great reminder of how an extreme personality and intense success are not without their costs. Read my comments.
Decision-Making: Phil Rosenzweig’s Left Brain Right Stuff delineates distinct but complementary skills required for making winning decisions: logical analysis and calculation (left brain skills) and as well as the willingness to take risks, push boundaries, and go beyond what has been done before (right brain skills.)
Biographies / Mental Models: Physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s scientific curiosity knew no bounds. His academic life, acuity, life-philosophy, and ability to communicate science are inspirational to anyone pursuing his/her own life’s fulfillment. The following biographies capture his many scientific achievements, playfulness, varied interests and hobbies, and—perhaps most notably—his many eccentricities.

Biography / Business: Sam Walton’s bestseller autobiography Made in America is very educational, insightful, and stimulating. Walton inspired legions of other entrepreneurs who thrive on managing costs and prices to gain competitive advantage. Read about an important lesson from this book about cost and price as a competitive advantage.
Decision-Making: Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 Rule advocates considering the potential positive and negative consequences of all decisions in the immediate present, the near term, and the distant future: or in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. Read my summary.
Biography / Mental Models: Walter Isaacson’s A Benjamin Franklin Reader is an excellent collection of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most beloved founding fathers. Franklin was a polymath renowned for his lifelong quest for self-improvement.
Philosophy: Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness argues the importance of taking a timeout from busyness. Iyer contends, “In an age of speed … nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention.” Read my summary.
Biographies / Art / Philosophy: Steven Naifeh and Gregory Smith’s Van Gogh: The Life and Michael Howard’s Van Gogh: His Life & Works in 500 Images paint a vivid picture of the artistic genius and the troubled personal life of Vincent van Gogh. Ever Yours is an absorbing anthology of correspondence between Vincent and his brother Theo. Ever Yours sheds light on Vincent’s shifting moods, turbulent life, and philosophical evolution as an artist.
Management: Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s One Minute Manager is a best-selling introductory business book about goal-setting and giving feedback. Read my summary.
Biographies: Tenzing Norgay’s autobiography Man of Everest and Yves Malartic’s Tenzing of Everest portray the personal triumph of a poor and illiterate but ambitious, deeply religious explorer.

On a related note, read my article about reading hacks: How to Process that Pile of Books You Can’t Seem to Finish. Also see books I read in 2014 & recommend.

When Delegating, Acknowledge Possible Errors

September 25, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Earlier this year, the ever-brilliant Ben Casnocha wrote an interesting essay reflecting upon his “10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman,” the co-founder of LinkedIn and a prominent Silicon Valley investor. As Hoffman’s chief of staff for two years, Casnocha worked on strategic aspects of Hoffman’s many personal and professional projects. The two also authored “Start-up of You” (on career management) and “The Alliance” (on talent management).

Casnocha’s “What I Learned” essay is full of helpful management and leadership insights. Here’s one on delegation:

If you’re a manager and care seriously about speed, you’ll need to tell your people you’re willing to accept the tradeoffs [of delegation]. Reid did this with me. We agreed I was going to make judgment calls on a range of issues on his behalf without checking with him. He told me, “In order to move fast, I expect you’ll make some foot faults. I’m okay with an error rate of 10-20%—times when I would have made a different decision in a given situation—if it means you can move fast.” I felt empowered to make decisions with this ratio in mind—and it was incredibly liberating.

Idea for Impact: When Delegating, Acknowledge Possible Error

Managers can’t do everything. They must accept that they’ll need to delegate tasks often, knowing full well—often with good reason—that employees may not do those tasks as well or as fast as they managers would themselves.

To build confidence in employees’ skills in handling delegated tasks, managers can give employees a few initial low-risk tasks. As the manager gets more confident with the employee, the scope of delegated authority can expand.

Nobody makes optimal decisions every time. Demanding perfection from employees is unrealistic. Clarifying expectations, negotiating limits, expecting mistakes, and establishing confidence can be incredibly relieving and empowering to both managers and employees.

What Everybody Ought to Know about Writing Better Emails

August 18, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Over the last decade and a half, email has evolved into the modern organization’s primary medium of communication. One survey estimated that professionals tend to spend one to three hours per day reading and writing emails, and waste half of this time reading trying to interpret ineffectively written emails. Poorly written emails are a result of weaknesses in style and structure.

Poor style is characterized by improper spelling and grammar, meandering and complex sentences and abstract, technical or indirect language. Style is a function of formal education, developed primarily through practice.

In contrast, poor structure refers to disparity between logical sentence order and the reader’s comprehension of those sentences. Often, the central argument does not develop over the course of the email. Consequently, the email’s goal is unclear. Though poor structure is more pervasive, it is also easier to correct.

In this take-away from my “Write Right Emails” workshop, I provide a few guidelines to improve your the style and structure of your emails.

Write for Impact

Before you compose an email, address two key questions: (1) “Why am I writing this email?” and (2) “What do I expect the reader to do and when?”
Compose your email from the reader’s point of view. Make it easy for him/her to understand immediately why you have sent that message what response or action you expect.
Be brief. It saves everyone time and drives action. Summarize information such that your readers are more likely to read the email and actually respond. Attach all supporting material or offer to provide details if the reader is interested.
Make each paragraph’s first sentence as clear and persuasive as possible. Assume that the reader will read only the first sentence before deciding if he/she is interested in the second sentence and beyond.
In each paragraph, make your most important point first before providing details. The reader will better understand the major (abstract/summary) ideas first before he/she is presented with the minor (constituent) details.
Make your emails count the first time. Anticipate any missing details that could cause an extended back-and-forth. Anticipate any supplementary information the reader may need.
Do not rush to send emails. Dedicate time to proofread each message. You can usually improve the wording, make a point more concisely, or generally improve. Do not give your readers an excuse to misread you.

Use Great Subject Lines

State your email’s objective in a meaningful subject line. Give readers a clue as to what your email is about and, more importantly, your expected response.
Include two components in each subject line: [Context/Project] + [Message summary/Action required] E.g., “Need MATLAB help: how can I calculate variance,” “Competitive pricing problem: recommended solution.”
Avoid indistinct and elusive subject lines: “Hi,” “One more thing …,” “FYI,” “Can you do this,” or, “Help, please???”
Prefix the subject with ‘URGENT’ if the matter is pressing.
Try composing all-in-the-subject-line emails. E.g., “Friday’s lunch: rescheduled to 1:00 PM [eom]” or “Reminder: budget reports due today at noon [eom].” Within your team, adopt a few standard practices and abbreviations (e.g., EOM for end of message) in your team.
When replying to emails, change the subject if the thread’s topic has changed or if the original subject was too vague.
Do not discuss multiple subjects in a single message. Send multiple emails, each with its own meaningful subject line.

Improve your Writing Style

Keep sentences short. Use fifteen or fewer words per sentence. Use simple vocabulary. Avoid jargon and buzz words.
Limit paragraphs to four sentences. Each paragraph should not be more than one inch tall on a computer screen’s display.
Limit your entire email to one screen size; the reader should not have to scroll vertically or horizontally to read your entire email.
Break longer messages into bulleted or numbered form.
Use the active voice (e.g., “I appreciate your thoughtfulness and assistance”) and avoid passive voice (“Your thoughtfulness and assistance are greatly appreciated”). Active voice is direct, simple, and more concise.
Personalize your emails: Use “I,” “you,” “we,” or “Mike from Quality Assurance” as subjects of sentences instead of “our company,” or “the Quality Assurance team.”
Compose emails in Microsoft Word while writing, editing and proofing text. Then copy your messages to your email software.
In Microsoft Word’s “Options” dialog box, activate all the “Spelling & Grammar” settings. Enable the ‘Check grammar as you type’ and ‘Check grammar with spelling’ options. Select ‘Grammar & Style’ from the ‘Writing style’ drop down and click on the ‘Settings’ button. When proofing text, use “Tools”-“Spelling and Grammar” or the keyboard shortcut F7 to check spelling and grammar.
In Microsoft Word, turn on “Readability Statistics” in the “Spelling and Grammar” options dialog box. After the spelling and grammar check (see above tip), Word displays the Readability Statistics dialog box. For better readability in technical writing, target a Flesch Reading Ease score of 60 to 70 and a Flesch—Kincaid Grade Level of 8 to 9.
Do not write in ALL CAPS. This is the digital equivalent of shouting. In addition, ALL CAPS are harder to read.
Avoid SMS/texting language and acronyms such as ‘u,’ ‘afk,’ ‘ty,’ ‘jk,’ etc. Use normal capitalization. Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Avoid unnecessary exclamation points.

Observe Proper Email Etiquette

Keep language professional and courteous. Email tends to be a relaxed medium. Still, avoid humor, criticism, sarcasm and informal language. Be mindful of your tone. Email tends to transmit anger more easily than other emotions. Do not reply in anger.
Avoid emails that simply say “thanks,” “got it,” “see you at the meeting,” “you’re welcome,” “glad you got it,” or “Great, I’ll see you too.”
Be selective in your choice of recipients. Have a purpose for every addressee. Use “TO” and “CC” to differentiate between readers who have action items in the email and readers for whom the email is merely informative. Never use the “BCC” field. Do not overuse “reply to all” – include just the appropriate readers.
When forwarding or replying to a thread, trim everything irrelevant to keep the conversation going.
Keep attachments small. Use alternative means of exchanging large files.
Avoid prolonged conversations over email. Problems are often easier to defuse using a more personal means of interaction. If you have difficulty saying something via email, pick up the phone or if possible, talk to your recipient in person.
Have a face-to-face meeting or telephone call if a topic (discovery and problem solving, especially) involves a lot of discussion, debate, or data exchange.
When requesting a routine action from an employee, copy his/her boss as a courtesy. When requesting a special (time-consuming) action from an employee, first write to his/her boss and request for the employee’s time. It is not wise to circumvent the boss.
Do not “copy up” (copy someone’s boss) as a means of coercion. If you have not gotten a response to an earlier email, call the person.
Email is a public and permanent record and could be used in legal proceedings against people and organizations. Do not state anything that may be potentially hurtful or damaging.
Do not use your company’s email account to send private messages. Your company owns the content of your company email account.

Inspirational Quotations #592

August 9, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Anger, which, far sweeter than trickling drops of honey, rises in the bosom of a man like smoke.
—Homer (Ancient Greek Poet)

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
—William James (American Philosopher)

One discipline always leads to another discipline.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

Man… cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.
—James Beattie

We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.
—Thomas Wolfe

Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential; otherwise you’re just a middleman.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Don’t ever slam a door, you might want to go back.
—Don Herold (American Humorist)

If you spend more time asking appropriate questions rather than giving answers or opinions, your listening skills will increase.
—Brian Koslow

Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.
—Richard de Bury

Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little.
—Hannah More

To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

These Celebrities and Hollywood Actors Didn’t Just Wait Around for Dream Jobs to Turn up

July 21, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

“He who lives uprightly and experiences true difficulty and disappointment and is nonetheless undefeated by it is worth more than someone who prospers and knows nothing but relative good fortune.”
—Vincent van Gogh

Stories of superstars who struggled in their early careers are very inspiring

Some superstars had it made. They came from privileged backgrounds and had spectacular starts to their careers. They were lucky enough to attend the best schools, get the right pedigree, make the right connections, get an early break, or join the fast track to the top.

Other superstars were not so lucky in their early careers. Most of these men and women—particularly the archetypical self-made person—came from humble backgrounds and struggled to establish themselves. They found productive jobs to eke out a living, all the while never losing sight of their ambitions. They took every opportunity to learn and prove themselves. They worked hard to get a foot in the door, toiled in the trenches, learned everything about their trades, and painstakingly built their spectacular careers from the ground up. In sum, they didn’t just while their time away waiting for their desired jobs and dream gigs to show up.

Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams, Brad Pitt

Consider three Hollywood superstars who struggled during their early careers and worked modest jobs to earn their living but never abandoned their ambitions.

Hollywood legend Jack Nicholson (b. 1937) ran errands and worked as a messenger at Hollywood’s MGM animation studios before being “discovered.” He had moved from New Jersey to pursue his dream of becoming an actor and lived with his wannabe-actress mother (whom he thought was his sister until he was 36, a full ten years after her death.)
Comedian and Hollywood actor Robin Williams (1951–2014) gained precious experience in his twenties working as a mime artist in front of New York’s Museum of Modern Art while trying to find acting gigs. As a child, Williams hardly fit the stereotype of someone who would later pursue comedy. Born to a successful Ford executive, Williams grew up a shy, lonely child playing by himself in an empty room of his family’s mansion. He overcame his shyness only after taking drama classes in high school.
Celebrated actor and producer Brad Pitt (b. 1963) worked a variety of odd jobs while struggling to establish himself in Hollywood. To pursue his passion for the big screen, he moved to Los Angeles from Missouri two weeks before he was about to earn his degree in Journalism. He took acting lessons and made contacts. Within months, Pitt got uncredited roles in three films. For the next seven years, he gained increasing recognition in supporting roles on television and in films before securing leading roles that catapulted him to worldwide fame.

Examine the purpose of these examples viz. to emphasize that successful people find something productive to do while improving themselves and waiting for their big break. Take note of a crucial nuance: we are not discussing humble part-time or casual summer jobs that later-superstars held in their youth—e.g., Pope Francis worked as a bouncer in Buenos Aires, German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a barmaid in Leipzig, Bill Gates as a page in the United States Congress, Warren Buffett as a newspaper delivery boy in Washington, D.C.

Albert Einstein, Soichiro Honda, Stephen King

Other disciplines also present plenty of superstars who pursued their ambitions while holding humble first-jobs.

Physicist and philosopher Albert Einstein (1879–1955) spent two frustrating post-college years searching for a teaching job before becoming a clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In between examining patent applications and during his spare time, he worked on physics problems. In his third year at the job, he wrote four groundbreaking papers that transformed physics.
When Japanese engineer and industrialist Soichiro Honda (1906–1991) moved to Tokyo at age 15 to find work as an auto mechanic, a repair shop owner hired him as a nanny to his infant. With a child in tow, Honda often meandered about the garage, observing and learning from the mechanics. When the child was asleep, Honda tinkered with engines and started giving suggestions to the mechanics. He strengthened his passion for automotive engines just as the nascent industrial base of Japan was finding a new enthusiasm for machines.
Best-selling author Stephen King (b. 1947) struggled for years after graduating from college. He and his writer-wife grappled financially and lived in a trailer home. He worked hard at building a career as a writer and developed ideas for many novels. King sold short stories to men’s magazines and worked small jobs to make a living. When working as a janitor in a school locker room, he was inspired to write a novel titled “Carrie”. Set in a girls’ locker room, Carrie features a schoolgirl who exercises her newly-discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on her bullies. Carrie turned into King’s first published novel and lent him his big break.

Idea for Impact: Self-disciplined people don’t wait for the right answer or the golden path to present themselves. They understand that the best way to get unstuck is to start somewhere, focus on action, keep themselves productive, amend their course if necessary, and do all this without losing sight of their goals and ambitions.

A note of caution: Stories of superstars’ successes are but cherry-picked examples

“Welcome to Hollywood. What’s your dream?
Everybody comes here. This is Hollywood, the land of dreams.
Some dreams come true, some don’t. But keep on dreamin’.
This is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin’.”
—From “Pretty Woman” (1990)

More than we possibly realize, so much of life’s success in life has to do with luck (or fate or destiny.) As I’ve written previously, success is often more about being at the right place, at the right time, and with the right person than about possessing the right skills and working hard.

The above are merely examples of a few lucky superstars who made it big in Hollywood or in their chosen disciplines and followed their passions as careers.

For every Stephen Hawking or J. K. Rowling, there are thousands of wannabe writers whose creative writing doesn’t even pay enough to buy the notebooks they use.

For every Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams, or Brad Pitt, there are countless Hollywood wannabes struggling in the “Land of a Million Dreams.” What’s more, among actors who manage to find work, an even smaller fraction of them actually make a living doing it. Part-timers are paid so little that they must work at stores, restaurants, or bars at night and on weekends. The cost of living in Southern California has hit the roof; even professionally-done headshots cost hundreds of dollars. The celebrity impersonators and street performers on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame have even started aggressively pestering tourists and photographers for bigger tips.

Celebrity impersonators and street artists on Hollywood's Walk of Fame pestering tourists for bigger tips

In the la-la land of Los Angeles, chances are that any random person you meet is an aspiring actor, model, designer, musician, songwriter, screenplay writer, director, stunt-double, makeup artist, or is trying to get some gig in the entertainment industry. Each aspirant is taking classes, trying to make contacts, looking for auditions, hoping to land jobs, wishing to be “discovered” by an actor or noticed by a talent agent at a restaurant, club, or elsewhere.

Competition is brutal and the market for fame is saturated

In Hollywood, anything is possible and yes, “some dreams come true.” However, in reality, there’s an infinitesimal chance that any aspirant will ever get a break. Even still, thousands of hopefuls flock to Hollywood every year (and thousands of rejects move out.) After endless auditions, rejections, or false starts, they wake up to the harsh realities of competition and get jobs that are more gratifying than chasing a near-impossible dream.

“He that lives upon hope will die fasting.”
—Benjamin Franklin

If you have a passion for something that will not pay adequately, pursue it on the side. Here’s some sage advice from my mentor Marty Nemko:

Do what you love, but don’t expect to get paid for it. Want to be on stage? Act in community theater. Want to be an artist? Convince a restaurant to let you decorate its walls with your creations. To make money, pick a field that pays decently and has few liabilities. Chances are, that will lead to more career contentment than pursuing a long-shot dream as your career. Treating a long-shot dream as an avocation gives you most of its pleasure without forcing you to endure a life of poverty.

« Previous Page