Author Archives: malte

TNF #017: Keep it professional

Welcome Professionals…

…I recently sent a text message to my boss: “kids are asleep now, how about you?”. This was a misled communication. The message was meant for my wife, but I sent it to my boss instead.

We all know these cases of misrouted communication. Wrong recipient, accidently hit the “reply-to-all” button or printing on the wrong device, respectively not picking up the printout. Sooner or later it happens when operating under time pressure.

I have a clear principle. I write every message in a way that will not embarrass me when misrouted.

No silly nicknames for clients, no swearing, no offensive jokes, no nonsense.

Simply keep it professional!

Malte

Thursday Night Flight is brought to you by Malte Müller Professionals. Sharing best practices for top management consultants on topics like communication, client handling, problem solving, appearance, and fitness. Check out www.mm-professionals.com for more material and free resources!

TNF #016: Say what you want!

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Welcome Professionals…

…I just came back from a convention this week. One of the speakers said: “I wouldn’t say that it isn’t wise not to invest these days…” Extremly odd sentence, don’t you think?

Interestingly, I realize that many people – including myself – use denial expressions quite often. We tend to state upfront what we do not mean or what we do not want or what we do not believe is true. I do not know why. Maybe because we feel more strongly about things that we do not want than about the things we really do want.

What I do know is that this way of communication is extremely harmful to our message that we want to bring across. We want to convince people, persuade them, drive them to actions. By stating the opposite, we leave the wrong impression.

cup.elephant

The brain is not able not to think of something. “Do not think of a pink elephant!” This is a famous example. Of course, everybody pictures this pink elephant instantly. The same happens to the denial expressions. Statements like “this offer is not expensive”, “this project will not last forever”, “I am not a beginner” etc. leave the listener with the imaginations of “expensive”, “forever”, and “beginner”. This counteracts our real meaning.

So, say what you want! Try this exercise right now. It is not as easy as you may think.

Let me know how it works,

Malte

TNF #015: Genius happens in default mode

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Welcome Professionals…

…we are all focused on solving problems for our clients. This requires a great deal of creativity. But sometimes, we get so goal-oriented that our brain has trouble finding creative solutions. Being busy and focused kills the associative thinking process.

My mother used to annoy me with a simple advice. At times when I was extremely busy, she would call me and say something like “Go outside, enjoy the sunshine and get yourself some ice-cream!” I only realized much later that there was actually a lot of conventional wisdom in that.

Leading neuro-psychologists agree that the real genius happens in default mode. I bet we all know this from experience. The creative idea that sparks after having taken a nap, during the shower or while exercising. When we involve in an activity that does not require our attention, the brain switches to default mode. It is then when the genius occurs.

Despite all the focus and attention you put into your work in this first week of the year, I encourage you to take a break. Right now. Allow your brain to switch to default and unlock the genius inside of you!

You are welcome to share your genius ideas in the forum!

Malte

TNF #014: Change – how the force awakens

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Welcome Professionals…

…we are beginning a new year tomorrow. As usual at this point in time, many of us will craft new year resolutions. Resolutions that shall change something in our lifes for the better. But what makes the difference between halfhearted wishful thinking and a rigorous change effort?

It is the case for change! When change fails for individuals or for organizations, it is often due to underestimating the case for change.

Change is expensive, change is an effort. Nobody changes just because he or she feels like it in that moment when glasses are raised on New Year’s Eve. We need to take a conscious decision and we have to attach a strong motivation to our effort. Motivation works best if there is not only a rational reason, but also a strong emotional trigger attached.

It is just a matter of our human brain that avoiding pain is a much stronger motivator than seeking pleasure. So if we are seeking for change to the better, it helps to formulate the pain we are facing if we stay where we are.

In summary, a strong case for change consists of:

Conscious decision to act now
Rationale for change
Emotional motivator of avoiding pain in the future

Phrased in an example, the case for change could be: “If we do not bring our production cost down to USD 75 per piece in 2016, we will loose a market share of 20% and eventually be pushed out of buisiness in 2020. We will loose everthing we worked for in our company history over the last 50 years.” This would be a strong case for change, wouldn’t it? Now try and fill this exemplary case with your own resolution!

Happy New Year!

Malte

TNF #013: Christmas sickness

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Welcome Professionals…

…today’s edition of Thursday Night Flight falls on Christmas Eve. For a couple of years in a row, I have felt sick on every Christmas break. I am not talking about all the social tension that typically occurs during that time of the year while sticking together with family members, in-laws and some distant relatives. I was feeling physically sick. I had a strong flu with headaches, fatigue, muscular aches and pains, and all the other sympthoms that typcially go toghether with a cold. I remember one night on Christmas Eve when I found myself lying under the Christmas tree at around 9 p.m. freezing and feeling terrible.

This was a classical state of “leisure sickness”. The phenomenon has been first described by two Dutch psychologists in 2001. They discovered that especially people with an “inability to transition from the work to the non-work environment, a high need for achievement and a high sense of responsibility” are suffering from this state.

If you discover symptoms of leisure sickness as well, take it as a warning signal. Do not underestimate the effect or even glamorize it as the typical working hero phenomenon like I did for a while. This is in most cases related to a high degree of perfectionism combined with deprivation of sleep. Two subjects that I have been dealing with in Thursday Night Flight as well. Check out these two editions if you ever had a case of leisure sickness:

I am wishing you all a healthy, merry Christmas! Take care of yourself and your loved ones and have a good rest!

Malte

TNF #012: Be your own gym – part 2

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Welcome Professionals…

…how to find your perfect exercise? In “Be your own gym – part 1” I postulated four principles for a management consultant’s workout:

Have equipment with you anytime!
Independent of weather and day light conditions!
Independent of other people!
Perform on a fixed schedule!

But how can you stick to all these principles in order to make your exercise a sustainable habit that fits your work schedule? I used to go running, but it is quite limited on cardio training and it is certainly not independent of weather, day light and other surroundings. The build-in gym of hotels I stayed in usually costs to much time for me getting familiar with the equipment or would not be open at the time I wanted to work out.

I found a solution. A friend made me aware of this. It is called “You Are Your Own Gym”. This is a bodyweight exercise by Mark Lauren who developed the program for US SpecOps soldiers. He transferred it to the civil life. All you need is your own body. For some of the exercises you will need a table, a chair or the door frame – available in every hotel room. It is the perfect allround fitness program for the consultant, matching all principles.

Bodyweight fitness is as old as mankind, everyone knows the classic push-up and pull-up. There are many variations of the same idea and thousands of programs available. Great about Mark Lauren’s program is that he offers an app for your smart phone that leads you through it. You do not have to read books, remember exercises or even configure your own set. The app leads you through the workout like a personal trainer. 150 different exercises are varied in ladders, interval sets, supersets, stappers and tabatas. This variation and periodization stimulates your body for continuous development.

Go and try it! You can download the app on www.marklauren.com.

Let me know how this works out for you

Malte

TNF #011: Be your own gym – part 1

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Welcome Professionals…

…we all know, we should exercise! There are so many good reasons for regularly practicing sports:

sustaining your health
being in good shape
balancing mental work by physical activity
vitalising your mind and your body
and many more

There are many further benefits and positive side effects. I do not need to make a case for exercise here. The key point is: it takes time and it takes discipline. Both are not abundant for a consultant because we put all our time into our work and spend all our rigorous mental power on our clients.

The key is to make exercise as easy and convenient as it can be and to make it a habit, so you do not have to spend precious will power on it.

Your exercise should not require any equipment that you cannot take with you at all times on business travel. Take your sports gear with you at all times!
Your exercise must be independent of weather and day light conditions!
Your exercise should be independent of other people!
You should have fixed time slots that you are able to follow at least most of the time. You should not have to decide from time to time if today is a good day for exercise.

How can you achieve that? Any ideas? Let me know! In part 2 I will share with you what I found for myself.

Stay tuned!

Malte

TNF #010: Keeping principles under pressure

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Welcome Professionals…

…this week is one under pressure. I thought about writing the next topic for TNF over the weekend, but I had other priorities. As we approach the end of the year, my days are packed from waking up until falling to bed.

We just had an important client presentation which came in short notice on top of all the other “year-end-project-termination-speed-run”. Now I have 15 minutes to write and publish this week’s edition of TNF.

In order to prepare for today’s presentation, I had to set priorities very strictly. I allocated close to all my working time to this one project and left everything else aside. I told other clients to call me later and I shifted some other scheduled meetings away.

What I am actually proud of: I kept my principals under pressure. These are:

My loved ones matter most. My wife was able to take her night out with the other ladies and I cared for my kids.
Get enough sleep. Even though it was only 5 hours, I had a decent amount of sleep to get rested to the presentation.
Stay positive. I kept a positive attitude to my surrounding instead of getting hectic.
And finally: I kept my plan of writing a new edition every Thursday!

What do you think about this? Let me know about your own principles and how you operate under pressure.

Malte

TNF #009: Effective team building – keep it simple

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Welcome Professionals…

…as top management consultants, most of us work in teams. So team building is of the essence for good cooperation under high pressure.

The common phrase “work hard – play hard” leads us to plan fantastic and outstanding events. Events that are as thrilling and unique as our work. And certainly, special events like a helicopter ride in the Swiss Alpes, safari trecking in Mozambique, or bungee jumping from the television tower definitely stay in the long-term memory. They make it to the allstar list of stories why it is worthwhile to work day and night with an awesome team.

But are they really suited to enhance effective team building? They rather serve as a special retreat. Most of the time they happen after a significant project success, so when team building is actually not needed any more.

When it comes to team building I found that the most simple events work best. Events that enhance communication among team members on different topics than work. Even better if these events are suitable to build them as a routine into day-to-day life on a project.

As a young project manager, I did some experiments with team building events. I was surprised which events were ranked by my teams as most effective. Let me share two examples.

Supper tradition: In a very remote place without any restaurants near by, we used to go to the next supermarket and purchase bread, cheese, vegetables etc. to have a joint team supper. We had it at least twice a week for about 30 minutes.
Running case team meeting: Once a week we would go for a run together before going to work. Everybody would share his most important thoughts on the project while running. No slides, of course. It was a great training for crisp short sentences as well.

That leads me to my conclusion. Effective team building events are simple, comprise of a joint activity, enhance communication beyond work and are idealy repeating events.

Have a great time building your teams!

Malte

TNF #008: Key metrics to the value creation process

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Welcome Professionals…

…thank you for your encouraging feedback on issue TNF #006. This seemed to hit an important topic and raised some reactions. My key recommendation is to be fully dedicated to the value creation process rather than getting too focused on perfect end results.

I would like to make this idea more tangible today.

“What gets measured gets done” is a phrase that every top management consultant knows by heart. But what are the appropriate KPIs, if we want to concentrate on the value creation process appropriately?

I believe that in many cases, our clients and also ourselves pick the wrong metrics when it comes to value creation. We choose results-related KPIs that have us focus on end results with strained anticipation instead of dedicating our full energy to the value creation process.

Let me give you an example. Oftentimes, the overall business targets are transferred directly into KPIs for day-to-day operation. A consulting company has an overall revenue and billability target so it is broken down to individual revenue targets by consultant and then into a monthly run-rate, a weekly billability rate and so on. So far so good.

The problem begins, when the individual consultant takes a narrow focus on his/her weekly billable hours and revenue goals. The revenue KPI is to a certain extend a derivative of the value creation work. But it is not directly linked and certainly not directly proportional. When we stare at results-related KPIs that are not fully under our own control, it takes away our attention to what really matters in value creation.

If we want to concentrate on the value creation process, we need to define metrics that are linked to this process. KPIs that we as individuals or as a team have fully under control. We want to measure and control the action that will – most likely – have a positive impact on our final business targets like revenue and profit. Examples for these KPIs could be

Quality of work
Number of new target clients contacted
Research productivity
Client satisfaction
etc.

As a consequence, I allow myself to be judged only on KPIs that I have fully under my control and that are linked to my personal value creation process. Only from time to time, I check back if it also fits with my revenue goals. What I discover then most of the time is that I need more patience. And that a lot more hard work is required. 🙂

Let me know what you think,

Malte