Hard-Boiled Compliance

Less is More

( 'nuff said )

Remodelling Woes - What Ever Happened to the Buyer is Always Right?

What is it about remodels? Why does everybody have a horror story?

I know I have mine. But after listening to a number of other stories, I don't feel that bad! One person's project took 2 years. Another person just fired her contractor after a year's worth of grief, because she was just over him not showing up when he was supposed to.

Yesterday, I was looking forward to having my countertops installed, and finally getting a sink in the house after 3 months. They show up ... and nothing but problems ... as usual. The faucet's too short, the tile guy didn't do this, or shouldn't have done that. Nobody told them that the wine bar was getting granite, and we're out now.

My fireplace mantel guy seems to think that, just because there's only an eight of an inch height difference between the middle section and right section, it should be okay. Okay for who? For him? What about me? I think it looks terrible.

And of course, today I still have no sink.

I get the feeling they care about me somewhat, but they care more about themselves. Nobody's listening to what I need, and I'm paying all the bills! It's foreign to me how this perpetuates throughout an industry. I can make that claim, because that's the same stuff I hear from everybody else.

So, how do you feel when you're paying for everything, and nobody cares about your point of view? Think about that the next time you run a project. Cater to the buyer's needs first. Everything else is secondary.

No Pain, No Gain

I'm sure you've heard the old saying, "No Pain, No Gain". Actually, it's not true. You can experience a lot of gain with no pain at all, if you know how to leverage the right tools and expertise - but that's for a different time. Pain is an unfortunate but necessary part of growth - both personal and business.

Tony Dungy, head coach for the Indianapolis Colts, gave a speech in 2006 to a Christian group called Athletes in Action, entitled Super Bowl Breakfast 2006 ( be aware, this has a very strong religious undertone ). In his speech, he he tells the story of his young boy, Jordan who has an extremely rare disease called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis ( CIPA ). In a nutshell, young Jordan cannot feel any pain. In this quite remarkable story, he tells the group how his son, behind his mother's back, would open up a hot oven, grab the hot rack of cookies inside, and proceed to put scalding hot cookies in his mouth to eat! He can taste the cookies, but he can't feel the burns on his hands or tongue.

Although this super-heroic quality may sound appealing to some people, it is actually quite damaging. Jordan's wounds do not heal, because his brain does not recognize them on his body, so it doesn't send the necessary healing agents to cure them.

Although I spend my life devoted to helping companies avoid pain, I know how important it is for real growth, and so when it needs to happen, my advice is to just let it happen.

When does it need to happen? When your common sense advice gets overruled.

I'm an adviser, not an enforcer. If you choose not to take my advice, that's certainly your option. However when projects start going down the wrong path, as people committed to the solution, we often tend to do everything in our power to help our stakeholders avoid the pain, even though they deserve it. This may involve constant personal sacrifices, such as unpaid overtime and missed personal engagements.

I was on a project one time where my entire project team basically killed ourselves to meet an unrealistic deadline. We did a 6 month project in about 2 months. At the end of the 2 months, the key stakeholder came to us and said, "Well if you can do that in 2 months, then why can't you do about the same in the next 2 months?"

It's not worth it. Without being able to feel the pain, the right signals aren't transmitted up ( the channels ) , and the brain ( upper management  ) doesn't respond correctly.

CIPA may be a rare human disease, however it feels like a corporate epidemic. As much as you may not like it, make sure your superiors; whether they be directors, VPs, C-Level staff, or the Board of Directors feel the pain of their bad decisions. It's for their own good.

Learn to Listen More to Your Internal CFO

I was talking the other day with a colleague of mine about one of our favorite topics, "Why do companies, especially larger companies, make it a habit of making stupid business decisions?" To be honest with you, I've never really figured that out, but I've personally witnessed companies doing that for the last 20 years or so.

As a small company, I'm constantly asked by potential clients why they should go with me over a larger firm like EDS ( on the technical side ), or KPMG ( on the finance side ). To me, that falls into the stupid question category ( oh yes, I do believe there are stupid questions, and I hear them all the time ). Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything personal against any of the Big Four accounting firms, or any of the big IT Consulting firms. However, why would any company dump such huge amounts of money into an effort for such little return?

Case in point, I just witnessed a very large high tech firm outsource the majority of it's IT operations. Although I don't have the hard numbers, I believe they spent a whopping $500 million on this move. In one fell swoop, they dumped 500 big ones, sent all their Information Technology intellectual property walking out the door, and witnessed their IT capacity and productivity sink through the floor ( I was involved in a situation where a typical 3 day ticket took 3 months to resolve ). Can you help me make any business sense out of this?

Chad Barr, an amazing technologist and purveyor of pragmatic technologies for life and business success, recently shared a great insight in his blog entry, Success Or Death? It’s Your choice. Here, Chad poses the question:

What is it about human nature that:

1. Even when individuals have clear and factual evidence that prove they may be in danger or possibly even death, they still elect to do it?
2. Even when organizations and leaders have been proven that there is a “better way”, they elect to either not do anything or select the more economical non-proven way?

Once again, I don't know. But I do know that unless you start getting your act together and making good business decisions, you could find yourself in a jailhouse instead of just a poorhouse.

You see, it's one thing when your bad business decisions only affect you. However when you need to start laying off employees because business is bad, people like the SEC start taking notice. Now if it's determined that business is bad because you are just making bad business decisions, especially when a "better way" is staring you in the face, you are really putting yourself in the line of fire. In these post-Enron days, this just isn't tolerated anymore.

A good CFO always thinks in terms of Return on Investment, not just the cheap options that don't work. We all have an inner-CFO that nags at us when we are put into buying decisions. You should listen more often.

Hard Drive Security

I own a laptop, and I consult with big companies, so I have to take extra care of the data that's sitting on my laptop. My biggest concern until lately was hard drive failure. Imagine if all my work went to the big bit bucket in the sky? That would be devastating, so I took normal precautions of backing up my data on a regular basis.

However, I have a new biggest concern -- data security.

I recently had a huge computer melt down ( and of course it was right in the middle of a major compliance effort ). I turned my computer on, it blinked a couple of times, then quit. No more life. I hit the power button several times, but it flatlined and wasn't coming back.

Prior to the meltdown, I made sure to follow all the good security rules. I had both a BIOS password and a Windows password. Both were different, and both were very hard to guess with special characters and numbers and everything.

Obviously, I was in need of a new machine, so in short order I was up and running on my new tablet ( which I love a lot better than that old heap anyway ). But what about all my data?

I thought I was going to need to access my backup, but it turns out I didn't need to. Although quite a convenience, what I was about to find out was quite disturbing. My motherboard fried, but my hard drive was well in tact. So my hardware guy just extracted the hard drive from the corpse, wrapped it in a fancy case with a USB port, and voila! My old internal hard drive was my new external hard drive. For about $60, I had all my data again!

I thought it was great at first, but then I realized that all those passwords didn't make my data secure at all! I'm sure all the thieves out there know how easy it is to pull a hard drive out of a computer and turn it into an external hard drive -- bypassing any BIOS and / or Windows password security. It's so simple!

So be careful. If the data on your computer is sensitive, make sure to use some sort of hard drive encryption software like GuardianEdge or a hard drive that has encryption technology built in, like the Seagate Momentus® 5400 FDE.2 hard drive.

Don't Chew Your Food and Talk At The Same Time

When I sat down for lunch today, I thought about making a few phone calls to "multi-task". Then I stopped myself. First of all, that would be pretty rude to whomever I was talking to. Secondly, I probably wouldn't enjoy my lunch.

So, I relaxed and enjoyed my lunch ( Chicken Katsu ), then made a few calls. My lunch went great, and so did the calls. Now, there's no way to replay life, so I don't know if the combination of activities would have finished faster if I would have decided to multi-task, however studies show that it wouldn't matter. As a matter of fact, according to numerous studies, I made the right choice all around, even from a time to complete standpoint.

I see this happen in organizations all the time. Management puts so many balls in the air, that the only way to juggle everything is to make your resources do 10 ( or more ) different things at a time. Not only is this not fair to your resources, but this strategy is actually backfiring on you. In reality, you're not getting more done, you're just making your team move more. I can personally validate the studies that multitasking is a bad idea.

Part of my success as a project manager, comes from insisting that my teams be able to focus. Focus is a powerful thing. There's a multiplier effect in productivity when any resource is able to focus on one thing. And, there's a logarithmic effect when a whole group is allowed to focus -- no question. The minute people on your team starting splitting time with something else, you get a dramatic loss of productivity.

The key to pulling this off as a manager, is discipline and courage. You have got to prioritize your goals and efforts, and consolidate your resources against the few important things that you need to get done first. After those are done, move down in priority in the same fashion. If you have a small group, only focus on one thing at a time.

This may not sound appealing, but if you're frustrated that nothing is getting done, your team is probably spread too thin. Three consecutive things actually gets done faster than three parallel things. The magic is in the focus.

Skinny Latte Please

For years now, whenever I go to Starbucks for my wife, I get her a ...

Tall double non-fat latte with sugar-free hazelnut.

The other day we passed by Starbucks, and she said, "Could you please check out what a Skinny Latte is? If it sounds like something I would like, please get it for me so I could try it."

Well wouldn't you know, a Skinny Latte is a non-fat latte with sugar free something ( including hazelnut ). My order just went from 13 syllables to 9, reducing my time to order by 30%!

Language is a great thing. We have the ability to take ideas and concepts that would take a long time to describe, and give it a word or two. Being able to communicate concisely in this way, is a great way to get the thoughts in your head disseminated accurately and timely.

And there's nothing wrong with making up with your own terms to describe something that would otherwise take a while to explain. Authors like Seth Godin do this all the time. Consider his newest book, Meatball Sundae. It's a four syllable term for a state that usually takes him a couple of minutes to explain.

But you don't even have to be as creative as Seth. I recently designed a compliance data warehouse for a large high-tech firm, and came up with the term Level 1 load, which describes a specific starting point in the data load. It's not as clever as Meatball Sundae, but still served the purpose of communicating in a concise manner with the support people, exactly what kind of load we need to run.

There is an extreme however, and it's usually the point when you start substituting in acronyms. Take a look at this statement ( which to some people will actually make sense ):

"EDS took the AI to KT the POR to CSC."

Unfortunately IT people do this all the time, and it's not right. Even though I use acronyms here and there, I don't condone excessive use, as it ends up clouding accuracy for the sake of timeliness ( not a good trade off ). If you are wise, you won't use them at all.

So, characterize your ideas in concise language, make up terms if necessary, but don't overdo the acronyms.

Flawless Compliance Newsletter - Feb 2008 Issue

The February 2008 issue of the Flawless Compliance (tm) newsletter is now available, with Center Stage article "Don't Be Late for the XBRL Train", Understanding XBRL and its Business Impact. Also, my take on the 5th undersea Internet cable accident, tips on running a daily meeting, CEO Edgar Bronfman busted for Insider Trading, and see what happens when over 200 people freeze in place at Grand Central Station.

Yang says "No Deal, Howie!"

I love how Yahoo! stuck it to Microsoft today, rejecting their unsolicited offer for $44.6 Billion. From what I understand, Yahoo's holding out for $40 a share. This would mean Microsoft ( or anybody else interested in Yahoo for that matter ), would need to cough up about $57.5 Billion. $40 a share? Jerry, are you feeling okay?

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO says Gates' offer "substantially undervalues" this Titan of our industry ( well, okay maybe "Titan" is a little strong these days, so how about "Hulk Hogan, Washed Up Wrestler Who I Still Wouldn't Want To Tangle With" ).

Jerry cracks me up. He reminds me of those guys that go on "Deal or No Deal", screamin' and dancin' around like a cocky nutjob until that last big amount gets knocked off the board. I can always tell when it's going to happen, too. Mom, Dad, and level-headed brother say, "For Christ's Sake, Take the Deal!" However, Mr. Personality decides to listen to his broke uncle that has a gambling problem, and says "No Deal, Howie!" 5 minutes later, he looks like he just got sucker punched, when the most he can walk away with at this point is the cab fare that got him there.

Emotions will always get you in trouble, when trying to manage your compliance project. Compliance projects tend to bring out the worst in people, because of the impact. When penalties are involved, people get heated. And when people get heated, they make bad decisions.

It's important at all times to keep a level head, always trust your data and stay objective. Data has no emotion to it, it's just data. So decisions based on real data are usually good ones.

And if you're running a company that's maybe worth $30 Billion, and you're offered $44 Billion, just hit the little red button and go home.

Can the SuperBowl Predict The Stock Market?

According to the Stock Market Predictor theory, the result of the SuperBowl can predict the direction of the Stock Market!

The theory goes like this ...

When one of the original NFL teams wins the SuperBowl, the market will go up for that year. Consequently, if a team from the original American Football League ( which merged with the NFL in 1970 ) wins the SuperBowl, then the market will go down for that year.

The Stock Market Predictor is accurate over 80% of the time! It seems like that's real good news for us, because the NY Giants were part of the original NFL team. Since they ( quite surprisingly ) won the SuperBowl, the market should end on a positive note this year, right?

Wrong!

I'm not saying the market is heading south this year, I'm saying use your head. Trying to draw any correlation between the two events is ridiculous, because it doesn't make sense.

In the real world, funny correlations like this show up in statistics. Statistically, there is a correlation between the winner of the SuperBowl and the direction of the stock market. However you always need to inject common sense. Numbers are good for understanding correlation, only when you have a reasonable explanation that makes sense.

Don't blindly trust what's spewing forth from the stat heads.