My New Discovery: Pixabay

As a blogger, finding graphics is challenging. I am not making money off the blog, so I don’t want to pay money for the blog. Since I am not about to start buying pictures, I don’t want to steal pictures, and graphic design is just not my thing - this has been a challenge.

Recently, however, a colleague told me about a great site for free graphics and I wanted to share it with the rest of the world. The site is called pixabay.com and they have tons of excellent, high-resolution images for free download in a variety of sizes.  

Apparently, the company survives by offering images from pay sites like Shutterstock and accepting donations. The Shutterstock images are clearly marked so there is no confusion and donations are optional. Considering how helpful this service is, I highly recommend donating so we can keep Pixabay alive forever (I already did my part and will do so again).

If you are looking for images, even for commercial purposes, I definitely recommend you check our pixabay.com!

Are Goals and Metrics Killing Your Company?

Departmental goals, metrics, KPI or whatever you call them are a business imperative. Managers have to monitor how well the department is doing, what initiatives are working and which are not working. Goals and metrics are also important for employees. Employees need something to work toward and something to celebrate when goals are achieved. So, considering the obvious importance of goals and metrics, why would the title of this post intimate that goals may be killing your company?  Because it is very likely that they are.

In most companies, each team has objectives and associated goals. For example, sales have sales quotas, marketing has lead goals, and customer service/support has to close a certain number of help tickets. On the surface, goals like this make complete sense but if you dive in deeper the problems become obvious. Often, employees will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals even if their efforts hurt another department or hurt the company’s profitability.

Think about it this way. If marketing’s goal is to bring in leads and hit their goals, why would they care about lead quality or sales resulting from those leads? If a salesperson’s goal is to sell, do you think they care about customer retention or do they sometimes stretch the truth about product capabilities just to close the deal? The customer service/support team tasked with closing a certain number of help tickets is quick to Band-Aid issues rather than fixing the underlying problem.

These are not the only way goals and metrics can hurt a company. With different departments working toward their individual goals, silos develop as resentment grows. Sales hates marketing because of lead quality. Customer service/support hates sales because they told the customer that product could do something that it could not. In the end, every department resents the other. And, though they are all playing the politics game, smiling and pretending to be one big, happy family, each department is passive aggressively damaging other departments by developing these us-against-them silos that limit communication at the very least.  

The solution is simple. Create cross-departmentally shared goals. For example, tie marketing to sales goals/quotas. Tie sales to customer service or customer retention goals. Develop shared goals between customer support and product development and so on until every department has shared goals across the company. In this way, they are no longer my goals vs. your goals – they become OUR goals and no one can succeed without cross-departmental cooperation. Most importantly, make these shared goals the most important thing! Don’t celebrate or pay bonuses or commission based on low-level individualistic goals. Celebrate and pay commission/bonus based on shared goals instead. This will help to drive home the point that working as a team is much more beneficial to the individual.

Do Your Employees Understand the Value of Time?

The other day, I was discussing a project with someone and making recommendations on how it

could be executed more efficiently to save time and money. Following my recommendations, the other party replied “We’re salaried. We are getting paid to be here [at work]. So, it doesn't matter how we get to the end result because the [salary] costs are the same either way.” I just stared that the person in disbelief for what seemed like forever and all that could come out of my mouth was “are you serious?”

Over the years, I have seen so many examples of inefficiency, disorganization, and lack of communication resulting in wasted time and duplicated effort. But, before this I never understood why it happened. This was the first time anyone has so blatantly explained their view of how business costs apply to the individual contributor’s time and effort. So, I thought it may be valuable to explain my views on the value of time.  

First, just about everything in business should be seen as a project. That may not seem obvious. You may think that a project should have a defined start and end date and many business operations seem perpetual. For example, sales operations are perpetual, right? You keep selling – there is no start or end date, right? Wrong. For the individual sales rep, the start date begins when you engage the prospect and ends when you close the deal. A new project (customer retention and or up-selling) begins when that prospect becomes a customer and ends when the customer stops using your product/service. The same project thinking holds true for the overall company sales operations in that each month or quarter or year (depending on your goals) is a project. Now, your turn. Think about any operation in your organization and find where the project begins and ends. Everything is a project.

The beauty of project-ifying (I think I made that word up) operations is that you can now begin to think in terms of project management and I love project management methodology. In project management tasks are associated with defined times, budget, and goals. For example, task A is expected to require 8 hours of an employee’s time and produce X result. 8 hours times the employee’s hourly rate (for salaried employees: annual salary times 20% for employment costs and benefits - divided by 52 weeks in a year - divided by 40 hours in a week) is the cost of the task.  So, for an employee making $25 per hour, an 8 hour task costs $200. What if that task could be completed in 2.5 hours if it was done more efficiently? That would save you $137.50. What if the task could be outsourced for half the cost without losing quality? Or, what if the task could be eliminated entirely?

Beyond the costs, project-ifying operations forces goals and results measurement. In the text above, 8 hours of work was expected to result in X. Did it achieve the desired result? What is the return on investment of the task when one compares the result to the cost?

Now, understand that I am not proposing that you create detailed project plans for every minute detail of operations. This is just a good way to think about operations, efficiency, and how costs apply to individual contributor’s efforts. Still, you may not be sold. The employee is still a full time employee and thereby still going to be paid regardless. Same costs, right? Wrong!

Now, think about opportunity cost. When an employee is working on task or project A – they are not dedicating time to task or project B thereby the employee may be wasting the company’s money if either task/project is not efficient, necessary, or has a poor ROI.  

I think that every employee needs to understand this concept. It is not acceptable for an individual contributor to be ignorant of the fact that their time directly impacts the bottom line. The best thing a manager can do to teach employees this lesson and improve productivity is to provide formal project management training as the relationship between tasks and budget is a main focus of project management.

In addition to understanding the relationship between tasks and budget, project management also helps employees to think, plan, and work more efficiently as they are forced to break larger projects down to the task level rather than jumping in head first. Once a project is broken down into tasks, the employee can see the steps required to accomplish the project more clearly and it becomes possible to reorganize disparate tasks in a more logical or efficient order, identify duplicated efforts, and eliminate unnecessary steps. 

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

In the last year of so I have been the phrase ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ a lot and it really irritates me how it is used as such an insult So far, this term has not been used to describe me (at least not to my knowledge) but regardless, I do consider myself a bit of a jack of all trades. I think being a product manager is inherently jack of all trades. That’s probably why it bothers me so much. So, in today’s LONG overdue post, I wanted to stand up for all those jack of all trades out there.


First, let’s define the jack of all trades master of none. According to Wikipedia (which we all know holds the absolute truth on every matter) this term is a “reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not necessarily outstanding in any particular one”. I think that is a fabulous definition. Describing a person as competent (in my mind) is a HUGE compliment; a compliment that I rarely bestow on anyone. To be competent is exceedingly rare.

Outstanding, however, is changeable, I think. For example, a person may be able to brag outstanding performance, understanding, knowledge, expertise, etc. associated with UHF. Who cares? Basically, a person can be outstanding for a little while and then their expertise becomes obsolete. What’s left then? A jack of all trades, however, can turn on a dime to leverage any number of competencies.

What’s best about jack of all trades… they are holistic. With competence in many areas, a jack of all trades can see the bigger picture and pull together a variety of things that are seemingly disconnected in order to build something comprehensive. Let me give an example…I work with many masters of particular trades – programmers, graphic designers, marketing, sales, finance, etc. These people have a single-minded focus on their area of expertise and that is what should be.

But, who pulls the experts' expertise together? To those who questions the value of a jack of all trades, do you really think that a software developer and finance manager are capable of speaking the same language or producing a profitable product? With these two masters, you have product and profit covered, right.... Not quite...Now, the jack of all trades understands enough of all these very different languages to ask the right questions, facilitate communications, and pull disconnected pieces together from a holistic perspective.

I absolutely agree that masters of trade are very valuable in terms of expertise in a particular area. But, it is the jacks of all trades who bring it all together to create a complete picture. 

Great Management Skills

I recently read a book called Good To Great by Jim Collins in which he discussed the concept of level 5 leaders. Level 5 leaders are managers who excel and make their companies great by creating an environment that is focused on a goal and never influenced by personal gain. These level 5 leaders are not afraid to face the truth – even when the truth means that they (the managers) are wrong.

The unfortunate thing is – there aren’t many level 5 leaders in the world. But, I think it is possible to become one. So today, I wanted to talk about what makes a good manager – or perhaps better, a great manager. Even after 15 years working, I am constantly shocked that these simple management principles are not common practice.

Obviously things like intelligence, business savvy, education, etc. are important, but these few character traits are equally important for a great manager.

Focus: A great manager has their eyes on a single goal. A good manager works toward that goal and never wavers no matter how rough the road may be. A good manager is not scattered or divided, but rather singly focused on one object.

Drive: A successful manager wants success so badly he/she is willing to work for it. This is not as obvious as one may think. Many, many people are very glad to let ‘success’ come to them. Few have the personal passion and drive to go after their goals full force. Few are willing to inconvenience themselves to learn more, push harder, work faster while never losing site of a focused goal and the bigger picture.

Humbleness: No matter how smart a person is, no matter how talented, no matter how good the instincts are, an excellent manager knows he/she knows very little. A good manager is willing to face the truth that others, even subordinates might know more. A great manager can accept that he/she may be wrong. He/She will correct any errors and accept responsibility while paying due acknowledgment to those who are right. A great manager appreciates the talents of others and encourages others to shine even if the other person’s light outshines that of the manager.

Giving: Contrary to what one might assume – I am not talking about money, stock options, perks, etc. The best managers are glad to give staff the best of themselves - their experience, knowledge, and creativity. Excellent managers freely share this without being threatened when another person excels. Great managers know that this is not only for the benefit of the recipient, but also for the benefit of the company when it can realize its maximum potential by having a staff full of experience, knowledge, and creativity.

Communication skills: Interestingly, communication is only partly about talking. In truth, a good communicator listens more than he/she speaks. It is amazing what happens – what you can learn, how much you can grow – by simply shutting your mouth and opening your ears and eyes. Every person is different. Unless you listen, you cannot benefit from that diversity. A good communicator reads to learn what is happening in the world while benefitting from other people’s diverse ideas and experiences.

While, I thoroughly believe that listening is far more important, a good communicator can also clearly express their own ideas and willingly does so. A good manager uses his/her communication skills to inspire staff toward shared goals – goals that are clearly communicated. As a humble person (mentioned above) the good communicator is willing to accept feedback and revise their opinions for the greater good of the business.

Not everyone has these abilities, but I do believe anyone can learn them and it all starts with listening. When a person listens to others, it is amazing how fast he/she finds that they know very little and learn a lot. As we listen and learn, we are inspired to drive toward achieving our goal. 

It is important, however, to actually listen – not just hear. Hearing is nothing more than vibration in the ear. Listening requires absorbing ideas and considering them. Even if someone says something that doesn't seem to have merit – consider how much you are learning about how other people think and process information. There is so much to be learned by listening and only a good listener can be a great manager. 

If you are looking for something good to read, I recommend Good to Great. There is a lot to be learned from the research Jim Collins and his team did and published in this book.