Month: October 2021

Designing for scale – How do you maximize throughput for your operation?

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

Last week, I was in a meeting where we brainstormed ways to accelerate and increase throughput for our prospect management within the constraints of the limited headcount we have available. Like many operational flows, the problem boils down to a typical prospect maturity funnel: you have many prospects coming in, but only a few of them will make it all the way through to actual customers.

Don’t fix the problem – address the root cause

The initial inclination of the group was the same that countless other teams fell for: put most of the people where the majority of the work is. That’s wrong!

If you want to scale an operation, optimizing within existing constraints (e.g., headcount), you MUST put your resources where they have the most impact, not where you face the largest volume and amount of work. You must concentrate your resources at the BOTTOM of the funnel, not the top.

In an ideal world, your people would ever only need to focus on those prospects who will make it all the way through the funnel. They would guide them from prospect to customer. Unfortunately, in the real world, you don’t know which select ones out of the huge prospect pool will make it all the way.

Reshape the funnel and rebalance your resources!

The trick to scaling is to invest as little of your precious limited resources at the top of the funnel and instead deploy automation, crowd-sourcing, self-service, or even relaxing verification criteria. Reduce the funnel size as cheaply (in terms of your constrained resources) and quickly as possible and apply your constrained resources where they need to bring a select few across the finish line.

Think really hard about what compromises you can make at the top of the funnel in order to allow more focus on the bottom. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much you put into the process – it only matters how much you get out on the other side.

In our example, we were looking at incoming college applications for prospective students. There are tens of thousands of those, and the staff processing them is limited. A way of solving the tension is to deploy automation (what amount of the applications is so cut and dry that an algorithm can move them forward), crowd-sourcing (what criteria can we share amongst the network of institutions instead of re-inventing everything), self-service (what information can we have students provide instead of us hunting it down with other institutions), and relaxing criteria (do we really need to check the complete set of details for prospects or can we delay that deep dive until someone became a student or is about to).

Designing for scale requires you to take a pause. You must look at the complete flow. You must decide where you can make compromises and where attention to detail and thoroughness matters. In many cases, it will require you to do the opposite of what your instinctive reaction would have been.

If you want to check out a fun read on this topic, I recommend “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (https://smile.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951/).

I read that book decades ago and then again just a few years past when I had to solve a challenging supply chain problem. However, I have to admit that I only fully understood then concepts when I had to build a hiring system at Amazon that supported more than ten million applications per year. The team worked hard across all dimensions of the problem space, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons through the process.



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Thriving in High-Pressure Environments
Lessons from Amazon, a global pandemic, and other crazy times
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9798718017663

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

How we decide on where to put our resources

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

A while back, I was asked in a 1:1 how one should decide where to put resources and effort.

There’s a pretty simple and basic framework to making those decisions, and it all comes down to ROI (Return on Investment): getting the most value out of the resources you are able to invest. This applies to decisions large and small: what product to purchase, what project to prioritize, how to plan your time.

While the framework is simple, it’s worth reminding us of it and bringing it top of mind for our daily decisions. Some of us are instinctively (or through years of training) following that model; others might consider putting a post-it note on their desk as a reminder.

ROI: the balance of Opportunity and Cost

  • Opportunity – The first decision criteria is the size of the Opportunity. If we do this project, if we buy this SW, what will we gain from it? What metrics will it change, and by how much? What is the impact on our overall operational cost? It comes down to quantifying the “Why” – and as you know, I am a big fan of always, always starting with the “Why”. Why do we do this, and what will we get out of it? How does that compare to other things we could do with our time? Steve Balmer used to say: “Show me the money!”
  • Cost – This one is easy: what does it cost to do the project? This includes headcount, fees, and future maintenance. We got all excited about the new opportunities and operational savings a solution will provide us, but what’s the flipside? What is the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of implementing this new solution now and in the future?

Having Opportunity and Cost gives you the ROI. As a first cut, you should rank all projects by their ROI – Which one gives you the most bang for the buck? Where should you invest limited resources?

Criteria that might override the ROI decision

  • Feasibility (and timing) – Feasibility is the criteria that should be checked first: do we have the prerequisites to even do this project or implement the new SW? Do we have the resources, or are they booked in other efforts? Is now the right time for this, given the other priorities for the organization, or should this be planned for a different time?
  • Risk tolerance – Of course, there is also a different category of projects that you just have to do, and this is where Risk comes in. Some work is required for compliance (e.g., new regulations) or minimizing threat vectors (e.g., increased security measures). In these cases, risk tolerance becomes an additional input to the ROI equation. What’s the cost of exposure, and how likely is it? How much risk are we willing to tolerate for a better ROI in this project or for putting our resources into higher-ROI projects? How much are we willing to forgo high-ROI projects in order to avoid risk exposure. Unfortunately, this category isn’t a hard science and usually requires informed judgment calls.
  • Follow-through – The last important criteria to consider are follow-through and sunk cost. It’s easy to chase the new shiny object. However, if you do that before you finish a project that you already started, you are on the path to wasting a lot of resources and frustrating a lot of people. Switching priorities can be necessary in (very few) cases, but it usually comes at a high cost. Whenever possible, follow through and finish what you have started – don’t waste effort by frequently switching priorities. The big exception to that rule is when you learn that your initial assumptions were incorrect. For example, the benefit might not be as high as anticipated, feasibility might have turned out to be questionable, or cost might be skyrocketing. In those cases, you need to reassess the whole project ROI. As for investing, don’t cling to a losing stock only because you already have sent a lot of money on it.

While ROI is a fairly simple financial calculation, the criteria in this bucket are less quantifiable. In most cases, it comes down to looking at all the facts you can collect and making an informed decision and judgment call.

As you do so, make sure to document the man decision criteria for that judgment call so that you know to revisit your decision if any of those criteria should change further down the road.

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Thriving in High-Pressure Environments
Lessons from Amazon, a global pandemic, and other crazy times
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9798718017663

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Show, don’t tell – Tell, don’t ask

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

How do you make things real for your audience? How do you move complex work forward swiftly?

Easy: you go from wishful thinking to concrete and tangible. You “Show, don’t tell”, and you “Tell, don’t ask”.

The first quote is an old saying, and I’m sure you’ve heard it many times. I made up the second one, but I like it just as much.  😊  Here is what both of those approaches mean to me:

Show don’t tell

If you want to have an impact and drive action, it often matters more how you say something than what you say. As you try to convince your audience and convey your thoughts, you must make them clear and real for your listeners.

Make it specific – “Specifics eat generics for breakfast” (I made this one up as well). Be specific! Provide examples, explain the specific impact, concrete next steps, dates, and owner. Instead of “we are trying to complete the project through summer”, say “Sam will complete the exploration phase by July 15th, after which Tom is responsible for implementation completion by September 21st”. Instead of “let’s regroup and follow-up on this”, say “we will meet next Wednesday and make a final decision on this – let the group know of any additional information you need to make that decision”.

Specifics eat generics for breakfast.

Make it real – Show a visual if you can. We can talk about how we should do things all day long, and everyone will make up their own pictures in their heads, circling around the discussion and misunderstanding each other. Show an image, flow chart, demo, UX mock-up, and your discussion and decision-making will leap forward. Give your attendees something to hold onto and react to – it will dramatically change the discussion’s dynamic. The same applies to agendas and meeting notes. Show them to your audience as you are in the meeting. Share your screen as you type the notes, provide your audience an artifact to look at, and anchor the discussions through that artifact. Extra points if you share those notes in real-time with the group.

Provide artifacts to anchor discussions.

Speak confidently – Last but not least, speak confidently. Say it like you mean it. If you’re not confident in your opinion and plans, take some extra time to think them through, but then step up and make an impression. Avoid softening words like “wish”, “hope”, “want”, “could”, “should” and instead use clear and confident language. “We will” convinces and wins your audience. Saying “I hope we can get this done by the end of Fall” is a recipe for failure; putting a stake in the ground and stating “we will do whatever it takes to go live on October 1st” gets your team focused.

Say it like you mean it!

Tell don’t ask

If you want to make progress, you need to put stakes in the ground. If you wait for others to make decisions for you, you will spend a lot of your time waiting…

Open-ended questions – I hear open-ended questions in the decision phase of many project discussions. “What do you think?” is a great question for brainstorming – and only for that! I am by no means downplaying the value of open-ended questions. They have their place in discovery, brainstorming, reflection, coaching, mentoring, and even in critical and contentious discussions. They are terrific to foster learning, information sharing, and broadening understanding and perspective. Unfortunately, they are terrible for coming to decisions.

Closed questions – Closed questions and “tell, don’t ask” come into play when it’s time to establish a common base and move on (“Any objections?”, “Is there anyone who doesn’t agree?”). They are also your tool to drive decisions. For example, don’t ask “What do you think?” when it’s decision time, instead tell and verify: “Alright, the plan is to roll this out by August 8th – are there any blocking issues with that?” Btw, don’t ask for “concerns” – voicing concerns is a tactic that is often (unconsciously) used by risk-averse team members to push away responsibility for unknown risks. It will not help you to advance a decision – ask for “blocking issues” instead.

Be deliberate about when you want to widen the discussion funnel (ask and listen – open questions) and when you need to narrow it (tell and confirm – closed questions).

Turn silence into an advantage – Have you ever said “Please come back to me and let me know if you agree or have concerns”, only to never hear back from anyone and not knowing if you had support or opposition for the plan? I certainly have. I learned to switch to “default approval statements” (not an actual terminology, I made that up as well) instead. Give a clear timeline by which you need to hear any objections and define what silence (i.e., lack of feedback) automatically triggers at that date. A good way of establishing a decision is to say “Unless I hear any blocking objections by the end of day tomorrow, we will move forward with the plan as proposed”.

Don’t trap yourself in an undetermined waiting loop – make default approval statements with a clear deadline.



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Thriving in High-Pressure Environments
Lessons from Amazon, a global pandemic, and other crazy times
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9798718017663

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Listening is your most powerful collaboration and leadership tool

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

That means really listening!

Did you ever watch yourself and checked what percentage of the discussion you were the one talking and how much of it you were listening? Most of us will be surprised by what we find.

To add some more self-reflection, check your thoughts during the periods when you are listening. Are you really following, digesting, and trying to understand what you’re hearing, or are you spending more time formulating your own wise answer?

Are you communicating to learn or to show off? Are you listening to understand or to make a point?

Listening is understanding, and listening is leading. Unless you give a presentation to a large audience, meetings where you talk most of the time are a waste of everyone’s time and energy. They don’t drive engagement with the audience – be it one person or a team of 20.

You lead by listening, not by talking.

So how can you change your interactions towards a more collaborative and engaging setting? Here are a few ideas.

I. Make short statements

Force yourself to make short statements and watch for the reactions. Don’t try to fill quiet space – it’s ok to have a few seconds without someone talking.

Remember that it’s not about you! Leave room for others and leave room to truly understand their thoughts and contributions (if that’s not important, you didn’t need a meeting in the first place). If no one speaks up, call them out individually and on specific topics or questions.

Here’s something critical I learned about (crisis) communication back in my days in Corporate PR:

The more you talk, the more people will think you don’t have a strong point (or you try to deceive). If you have a strong point, a short statement will do just fine.

Plus, if you keep going on and on in your speech, circling the same topic, you will have a really good chance of losing your audience to some more exciting topics in their heads or on their screens.

II. Pause and ask questions

Force yourself to stop talking. Take pauses and breaks. Ask questions – lots of questions.

Make a (short) point and then get feedback. Critical feedback is even better. Tap into the knowledge and experience of the crowd – if you don’t seek and need that input, you shouldn’t have a meeting to begin with.

III. Take the input

Acknowledge the input you receive. Really take it, think about it, and acknowledge what you have heard. Don’t just brush over it and go on with what your thoughts, plans, and opinions were in the first place.

It’s incredibly frustrating for me when I am in a meeting, the group is asked for inputs, thoughtful ideas come up, and then the meeting lead moves on with an unspoken “actually, I already have a plan and don’t really care about what you guys said”.

On the flip side – if you don’t want to take input on a particular topic, be upfront about it. Don’t pretend to ask for it.

Trust that the wisdom of the crowd is more brilliant than yours. Leverage it to your advantage. Learn from the folks in your meeting!

IV. Take notes

Taking notes is a great tool to focus yourself on listening and really following what is being said.

How do you distill down the key ideas that were shared in your own words? This active processing of the shared content will force you to listen and be tuned in. It will prevent your mind from wandering to the next topic, developing your own smarty-pants response, or multi-tasking in your email.

V. Play back what you heard

Lastly, we need to be aware that all we hear is being heard and processed through our own (unconscious) filters.

What you hear might be very different from what I tried to communicate. The only way to ensure that you really heard and understood correctly is to play the statement back in your own words.

“Thank you for sharing this. Can I quickly play back what I heard to make sure I understood correctly?” or “Let me just quickly play this back to make sure I got it right?” do wonders towards active and collaborative communication.

Talk less, listen more!

Listening is leading. Active listening is finding collaborative solutions. Talk less, listen more! There are better ways to demonstrate smarts than by dominating airtime.



Did you like this post? Want to read more? Check out our newest book!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is thriving-in-high-pressure-environments-paperback-cover.jpg

Thriving in High-Pressure Environments
Lessons from Amazon, a global pandemic, and other crazy times
By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk
ISBN 9798718017663

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.