Eaves Consulting: Notes & Observations

In case you didn’t know, this is Customer Service Week.  Here at Eaves Consulting, we strive to deliver excellent customer service every week of every year.  Some things you may not know about us:

1.       We are a customer service organization.  We deliver performance coaching and technology services to our clients, but these are our tools.  Our real job is to ensure customer satisfaction. 

2.       We don’t camp.  We mean in your organization, not in the woods.  Since I have been married camping means the Marriott, but that’s another story.  Some competitors have it as their strategy to move in.  Ours is to deliver good work product so that you invite us to do more work for you.

3.       Eaves Consulting has been invited to do more work for each and every one of our customers.

4.       We integrate into our client’s cultures and organizations.  One time we did this so well a consultant received an employee award (we had to correct that one).  Every organization is a customer service organization.  Whether you sell goods and/or services, your business is customer service.  If you are public or private sector, your business is customer service.  Whether you are for profit or a non-profit organization, your business is customer service.Key to our success is achieving customer satisfaction.  Here is what our customers expect and receive:

From watching 24 hour cable news and reading newspapers, it would seem this is the time to head for the bomb shelter.

Now is when you need to prepare for the coming upswing.

Regardless of technical economic reasons, America has experienced a good period of growth until fairly recently.  This may prompt us to think there should not be down turns in our economy, but these exist.  And they always will.  

Regardless of technical economic reasons, America has experienced a good period of growth until fairly recently.  This may prompt us to think there should not be down turns in our economy, but these exist.  And they always will.
Most your competitors are probably panicking and just trying to “make it through the bad times”.  Now is when you can leave them in your proverbial dust.  Those organizations that can hone their skills while business is slow will:
1.   Make good use of employee time
2.   Invest in team and individual professional development
3.   Improve communication skills

Get your employees training that will improve your company and them individually.  You don’t have to send them to Orlando or Las Vegas for a conference.  Buy books or training packs.
Work on your team performance.  Fine tune how they work.  Improve how they communicate. 

Often change is put out as a mantra (and well before this election season).  Embracing change is much more difficult than doing it.  Fact:  nothing stays the same.  Seasons change, time passes, and economies grow and contract.
Once you are comfortable with this reality, you will have a freedom of action lacked by your competition. 

Compete.  Be out in front.  Build your organization for continued success now and be ready to ride the crest of our next growth cycle.

Have another great American business day!

At Eaves Consulting, we get valuable insight into how organizations operate. During our time with clients we witness different cultures, leadership styles, and organizational structures. A common root cause for organizational dysfunctions is a lack of boundaries.

In order for people to be effective at their tasks, boundaries (aka rules) are essential. Since this is football season, let’s use that sport as an example. A game of football is governed by boundary lines. A receiver has to be inbounds when catching a ball for it to be good. Obvious, perhaps, but what if it was not a stated and accepted by all teams and players. There would be chaos. People would be catching balls on and off the field and running around.

Workplaces without boundaries can devolve into that level of chaos. An equally obvious boundary might regard a worker overreaching his or her authority. An example might be a person who tries to fill a gap left by department management not appointing a team leader that has been terminated. This person’s intention may be to “help out”, but without this new role being defined and communicated to all involved by management dysfunction can follow.

Other workers on this team might take insult to being told to do something by a peer. People on other teams may take offense at being asked to do work or provide information to a self-appointed team leader.

What is this scenario’s failure point? Department management. By not exhibiting clear leadership and publicly appointing a team lead, they are setting up this team to fail. Team members do not know who to go to for help and to handle team issues. Other workers in the company do not know how to interact with this team. Frustration builds. Resentment sets in. Avoid this by clearly setting boundaries for how your organizations work. This is not always easy to identify. And it is harder to implement strategies to set boundaries in place.

To discuss a similar change within your organization, contact us by email or telephone.

Have another great American business day!

Last night my wife, a friend, and I went to see Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba at Disney World.  I have seen three Cirque perfromances (La Nouba twice and Ka once).  Each and every time I am deeply impressed with their performances.  I think that most people think of Cirque purely in artistic terms, but to ignore the techical aspects would be missing half of the show.

Technical aspects include everything from lighting, cables people fly on, stages, and performances themselves. An ideal software project would be similar to a Cirque show in many respects.  Each project is using practiced and newly learned skills.  Hopefully different parts of a project have been rehearsed.  End goal should be for a project experience to be as seamless as possible for clients.

Now, don’t expect to be seeing me on a trapeze at a future project meeting, maybe a unicycle?

Tomorrow I teach my first Junior Achievement class on “Success Skills”.  Really looking forward to it.  Just finished up on some presentation materials.

In our hectic days it is far too easy to focus on each of our immediate needs.  I know I have done this.  Life does move fast (especially as you get older). But we also tend to make time for things that are important to us.  When working on my MBA I finished many a paper when the clock was moving faster and faster.  But, like most things that are hard and take effort, it was worth it.

I am looking forward to students’ attitudes and perspectives on business.  I know when I was in high school it was not on my mind.  I will update the blog with my course’s events.

From everyone at Eaves Consulting to our clients, employees, partners, and readers we wish you all a healthy and successful new year!  2007 has been very exciting and we look forward to 2008 being even better.

Everyone is planning, getting ready for 2008.  Please remember we are available to help you in your IT and process improvement/management planning.

Last night I watched Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve special and must say he is looking and talking better.  His recovery from his stroke seems much better from last year.  On ESPN they had a motorcycle jumper trying to break a world record for distance.  I was a sucker for anything Evel Kneivel did as a kid and watched Robbie Maddision ( the jumper).  He jumped 322 feet.  That was good enough for the record, formerly 310.  It was in Vegas at Rio.  I didn’t make it to that casino my one and only visit there, but hear it has a great seafood buffet.

With 2007’s end approaching, your organization’s needs in 2008 should be considered now (if you have not already started).  Many companies’ fiscal years are same as calendar year.  Budgets (hopefully) are done and contracts can start being awarded.

Something to consider.  Many companies like to wait until as late as possible to award a contract.  In today’s tight market of available quality consultants this could backfire.  This form of head game is rarely advantageous.  While some companies like to play head games with vendors, they should question what they are getting by doing so?  Does it get them a better deal? I venture to say no and contributes to an adverserial relationship.

While it would be naive to say all parties will sing happy songs around a camp fire holding hands, is such a stretch that each is treated with courtesy and respect?

So you have decided you need a web app.  Have you decided who is going to use it?  Yes, people will use it.  But people using which Internet browsers and computer operating systems?

If you application is to be used solely on an intranet, most likely you can dictate use of a certain web browser.  But this may not always be the case.  Acquisistions of other organizations could impact this decision if they use different computers (like Macs).  Or maybe partners are accessing your intranet.  So even for an intranet situation you may not always be able to control what browsers are used.

And what if your application is open to public users.  Users not affiliated with your organization?  In order for your application to be successful, it needs to be accessible to people using different browsers and computers.  This situation is one Eaves Consulting can assist with.  Our consultants routinely work with technology that will enable your web applications to work on computers using Windows, OS X (Mac), and Linux.

Remember, for web app success, greater audience = greater success!  And not everyone uses Microsoft Internet Explorer.

This past Saturday a manager at one of our client’s manager died suddenly of a heart attack.  Clark Angell, in the short year or so I knew him, was an all-round good guy at work.  He was professional, courteous,  and concerned for his team.  I consider this last part highest praise that can be paid to a manager. He was only 44.
This sad event is another reminder that we truly do not know what tomorrow holds for each of us.  It is a bitter reminder for each us to enjoy our life and spend it with those we care about.

Recently Apple announced release of it’s new operating system, OS X Leopard. Unlike Microsoft’s recent Vista update, Leopard is built on Apple’s previous operating system core. What does this mean? Most likely a much more stable upgrade (versus Windows XP -> Vista).

With all new software versions, a common question is when should an upgrade be done. That depends on your situation. Whatever that may be, always remember to back up your data prior to doing an upgrade. Always.

Just as a side note, I have been using my MacBook Pro since June and it has been great. There is a slight learning curve, but nothing that cannot be overcome. And since some of our development software is Windows only, when needed we run Windows on the Mac.
Will I upgrade on 10/26? Yes. After I do my data backup.