Successful Blog

Teams: How to Make Quality the Signal above the Time and Money Noise

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

10-Point Plan: Train Self-Managing Teams with an Outstanding Bias Toward Quality

Show Me in the Contract Where It Assures the Work Will Be Good

Spend enough time in business you hear the saying, “Fast, Quick, and Good, Can’t have all three!” or some version of it. In my business it was Quality, Schedule, Budget, Pick Two!”

I watched and wondered for years what made this algorithm work. Observation proves that without constant surveillance it consistently comes out the same.

Schedule and Budget win out over Quality.

Quality is hard to define, protect, and keep. It’s high touch, high concept, by it’s very nature qualitative and subject to discussion. Schedule and budget are right there, out loud, down on paper easy for everyone to measure and see.

In a business endeavor, every member of a team knows exactly how late, how much over budget some effort might be, but few can agree how much it has slipped on quality.

If we’re talking about products, it’s hard enough judge the quality gap — that’s the job of the product team.
But suppose we’re talking about quality leadership, quality thinking, quality communication, quality relationships, or living out a quality social media strategy?

How Do You Keep the Noise of Time and Money from Killing Quality?

Quality leadership does the quality thinking that forms the quality decisions. It’s quality communication that builds long-term quality relationships. That kind of quality is at the foundation of any team endeavor that succeeds. It’s also the at the core of any quality social media strategy.

Whether we’re talking to employees, customers, or volunteers, it’s important that we telegraph with every nuance of our brand that quality will always be the signal above the noise of time and money. Because quality is about them.

How do we build an outstanding bias toward quality into the fabric of our organization and our teams? Use the same steps we used to build a brand-values baseline and if you can, invite help from that same core team.

  • Start with the heroes and champions from the core team. Whenever change is the goal, look for the folks most predisposition to embrace the change and invite them first.
  • Put the problem before the change makers — about 12 people in three teams. When they have gathered first challenge the teams to define quality as a definition of thinking, leadership, communication, relationships, and process. Have them come to one definition for their team.
  • Ask that core group of change makers how to tackle the problem Ask them how to bring quality to be the highest signal above the noise on their team.
  • Listen and record their answers. Think of it as a list of possibilities, not necessarily a brainstorm, but more like an offer of possible tactics to try in their natural habitat.
  • Review the list and ask the group to sort it. Choose three categories. Possible categories might be leadership-based ideas, communication-based ideas and process-based ideas.
  • Ask each team to discuss one of the three lists they’ve made. Suggest that they discuss how well the idea might work over time with their coworkers, how it might need to be changed, and whether it needs outside input. Allow teams to add or remove ideas. Explain that they’re looking for one or more ideas that have merit — enough power and value that the team believes they could persuade others to put the idea into action.
  • Invite the teams back to the group to present the ideas that they believe have merit. Challenge the teams to persuade the rest of the room to take on their call to action.
  • Allow the listening teams to give their response and to offer their opinion on how easily they might be able to persuade others to join in to the proposed quality challenge. Work together to help reword and rework any that have value, but need a more powerful argument.
  • Decide on the most effective quality-enhancing changes that are most natural to the organization.
  • Build a strategy on how to introduce them to the larger group. Will it be peer-to-peer training? Will it be a meeting? Will it be a proof of concept that the small group tries and then demonstrates success?
  • Then, choose a way that everyone can measure the success of the attempt to change behavior to a more quality-based way of work. Set a date to meet again to report back, consider how things worked, and adjust the call to action or the process.

Research has proven we go where we look and we change what we measure. If we want our bias toward quality in thinking, leadership, communication, and relationships to grow, we have to look at, measure and talk about them in the same ways we do schedule and budget. If we want quality to be the signal above the noise, we have to invest our schedule and budget in making it so.

People look at what we do — not what we say — to know what we believe.

How do you prove to your employees, customers, and volunteers that quality is above the noise of time or money?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

Be Irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Retweet or Race to the Finish: 3 Steps to Influencing Action

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Not Just a Call, but Real Action

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You want people to retweet you?

Whatever the action, a retweet, a call to arms, or a race to the finish, enlisting a folks to move in the same direction to follow our passionate action requires that we follow some simple acts of our own. Consider these three steps and and the following equation the next time you want to influence people move to act on your behalf.

The three steps to influencing action are simple, but also harder than they look:

  1. Give people a big reason — important, urgent, and about teamwork — filled with meaning that is bigger than helping you do what you want..
  2. Show them how fulfilling the mission will benefit them and make them proud to have been a part.

    Request for RT = benefits for Requestor and the requestor’s people.
    RT http://mysite.me because we need 100 fans to help our school.

    Request for RT = benefits the Retweeter and many other people.
    RT http://kidzrd.com/ & Get a thank you from a kid who’s learning to read & a link in Reading Heroes List

    Which request would be more likely to move you to action?

  3. Make it easy to be a part. Whatever the action, hoard the hard labor, and offer the hero parts.

As with any quest in which we want to move people to action …

The rules are fueled by the spirit of leadership — the belief that we can build something important and urgent together that we can’t build alone. It’s our team on a relay race. It’s giving the reason that we want to run the race and are willing invest our best to go for the win.

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The math is simple.
Meaningful reason + proud feeling of sharing = a message that goes wide.

It doesn’t take training in calculus to work through this equation. It takes a true sense of humanity and human relationships. Any caring person can get to that.

What do you find is crucial to moving people to action in what you do ?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Thanks to Week 270 SOBs

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muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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cassieboorn
the-human-race-horses
kirktaylor
mcgraw-marketing
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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Listening for the Meaning

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Present Meaning

We spend so much time talking
about listening
that sometimes it seems that we don’t hear
the simplest sounds filled with meaning.

The sounds of cars on pavement
may not be the sounds of sleigh bells ringing
but they are the sounds of people moving.
Coming and going, spending time to reach a destination.

Do you listen for the people who could be coming to you?

The sounds of wrapping paper tearing
might not be the sounds of hearts opening
and exchanging joy, love, trust, and giving,
but inside the minds of those who tear away the ribbons
hearts are beating, memories are being forged and formed.

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Children are laughing, posing, playing and participating in the ways that only children do.

Do you listen for the good thoughts and feelings that people
say with their eyes, their hands, their time in bringing themselves to you?

Listening for meaning is an act of being present.
How lovely to just be present, listening to what it means to be with you.

May all your presents be meaningful, deep, and true.

Thank you for the meaning you’ve given to what I do.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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The Short Post Vs. The Long Post. Who Will Be Victor?

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By Terez Howard

I was recently interviewed about blogging, and one question I was asked was how many words a post should be. I will admit that when I first started blogging, word count was an issue for me. I would deliberate over posts not being long enough and think that if a post were too long, my audience would quickly stop reading it.

It’s funny. When I first started working at the newspaper, I was worried about word count. I had come from college. In English class, the instructor tells you to write x amount of pages. If you don’t, expect a lower score. Well, it’s not like that at the newspaper.

You are not going to get a lower paycheck if your articles are not at least 500 words. I learned very quickly that everyone wrote differently. Each writer highlighted different aspects of a meeting or event. Every person created an article that would interest readers. Whether it filled just one column or several, it still was news. It was written well, and that was enough.

Blogging for who?

If your blog is a personal project that isn’t meant to benefit anyone but yourself, write however much or little as you want. It’s for you!

If your blog is directed toward a particular crowd, then you need to ask yourself this question:

Does your audience favor longer posts or shorter ones?

ViperChill wrote This Is How Long Your Posts Should Be. Different blogs were different lengths. Variances were from less than 200 words to nearly 1500 words. Your blog’s niche can help you to see what kind of word count your audience is looking for.

But that is not the only thing that determines how long your posts will be.

Blogging for who, again?

What about you? You are the one doing the writing. Are you naturally a long-winded person, or do you get your point across in a few short paragraphs? Do you feel the need to explain every little detail, or do you favor short, informative lists?

Your own writing style comes into play when you’re deciding if you should write short posts or long ones. You have to allow your personality to shine because if you force yourself to follow rigid rules, your blog will suffer. You will find writing more of a chore than a joy.

Personally, I am a succinct person. I like to write what I think I need and stop. I hate to feel like I’m babbling. On the other hand, I’ve read plenty of long posts that have had me captivated to the very last period. On my blog, Jael Strong and I purposely mix short posts and longer ones. We do what we need to get the job done.

Just write!

Don’t get too hung up on word count. It really should not be too high your priority list. The most important aspect of your blog should be original, quality content. Short vs. long? I deem it a tie.

Do you tend to write short posts or long ones, and why?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas. You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger.

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

What Is the Most Crucial Element of Influence?

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The Outcomes We Achieve

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Every person has influence. What what we say, and how we act has an effect on how others think, feel, and behave. As a writer, an observer, and manager, I’ve watched and studied how people respond to what we do, what we say, and what they see.

As every parent and pet owner knows, sometimes the outcome we’re going for — a change in belief or behavior — isn’t the outcome we achieve. Our intent, our feelings toward an audience are only one side of the equation. How that audience interprets our words and deeds determines the change in belief or behavior that might result.

Our influence is highly affected by context.

  • The world view of the people we might influence. An individual’s emotional associations and beliefs can filter how people interpret our intentions, our words, and actions. A person who believes all learning must be their own experience will ignore a warning to avoid a dangerous part of town. A person who has only had bad experiences with people from our “group” may fight against any message we offer.
  • The value those people put on their relationship with us. Filters such as the halo effect and other cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, can change how our message is processes and received.

We don’t control how other people think, what they feel, or how they interpret what they hear and see.

Though we may carefully consider and choose the most generous way to communicate and interact within those those contexts, the audience will choose their interpretation of that interaction. The same authentic, highly influential, collaborative message to one audience will be a disingenuous, controversial, alienating rebuff to another audience. We see that all of the time in the world of politics.

The most crucial element of influence is understanding what the audience and what the already believes. If we want to influence people, to move them to an important action, to change their core beliefs, we need to know the audience, listen to their world view, champion their cause, and honor their reality. Lasting influence is a trust relationship built through time and shared experience.

How do you champion the audience you want to reach?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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