Archiv der Kategorie: English

SVC – Capacity killers from the top

Division of labor is determined by horizontal and vertical distribution of tasks. The enemy of this arrangement is the micro manager, who interferes with the tasks of the employees. A typical form is the supervisor call – the capacity killer from the top.

SVC2

Originally the supervisor call had to terminate the function of a running program on a host computer. Programs did not come to an end due to errors in the program code. In order not to restart the entire computer, a SVC could interrupt this program. It always had to be decided, whether the procedure is frozen in an infinite loop or it simply had to process many data. Surprisingly there are executives, who proceed according to a similar pattern in their organizations. They interrupt ongoing tasks regardless of the consequences. How can you recognize them?

  • Like the leopard cannot change its spots, we all have to live with our selective perception. We only consider what attracts our attention in the respective moment the most. Also decision makers cannot escape from this bias. As soon as people draw positive or negative attention with their activities, it can happen that a superordinate instance is motivated to a direct interference despite all delegation.
  • Similarly the blind spot works, which makes the look at specialties impossible. For executives these are mostly the restrictions that are imposed by money or time budgets, which they are not willing to accept. In the US, bosses invented for this purpose “stretched goals”. In the mean time we know the negative effects, if the bow is overdrawn.
  • Good leadership is characterized by an overview of existing and already used resources. As soon as this overall picture is missing, the requirements add up much higher than the possibilities that are available. Fatally the employees are double-charged for this deficit, since they are additionally accused of not being ready to make enough efforts. This produces a continuous discontent, which lowers the usual performance.
  • An important instrument of the leadership is setting goals with a certain prioritization. Long-term planning offers for this the general framework. The damage that is caused by the repetitive change of priorities is immense. Nothing is accomplished. Desired changes do not take place. Personal goals are not achieved.
  • A common approach is the temporary overriding of processes, hierarchies and schedules. And this happens, after the structures were developed, coordinated and decided. But why are you superior, if you do not have power to set this order off whenever you want.
  • It is also popular to assign special tasks spontaneously – past all the installed chain of command. This going around the established rankings with an overriding from top to the bottom is multiplied by the frustration of the ignored levels. Eventually the commitment of the involved people sinks because of their expectation of the direct interference, since they cannot assert themselves in any case.
  • The executives, who want to hold the pressure on the pipe by always coming up with new ideas, are particularly difficult. They undermine thereby the efforts of the employees to convert the ideas that they had just brought on the way. From the outside they seem to be creative and active bosses, who promote new things. That they bring nothing to an end, you usually see after they rose to their level of incompetence.
  • Superior people, who do not trust their employees, are condemned to the fact producing only what they can deliver by themselves. Even though the decisive delegation of tasks would increase dramatically the effectiveness of the own area of responsibility.
  • Those people are also remarkable who make their own ideas the measure of all things, despite missing arguments and out of complete hubris. They live out their Because-I-Want-It syndrome and do not even make an effort to consider the arguments of the others. It is only a matter of time, before the organization will uncover them.

Enterprises can overcome these exemplary symptoms of capacity killers, by taking care of their corporate culture. The most important tool is thereby the regular reflection of the way how executives behave and get to a decision. This is done with an open exchange of opinions within the top team and through employee surveys. Based on this, new ways should be found, in order to avoid awkward behaviors like SVC.

Bottom line: Leadership needs clear goals, roles and a consistent implementation. Superiors have to be thereby role models, who are passed on through all levels. In the positive case this happens for the advantage of the entire staff. Harmful behavior, on the contrary, can have life-threatening effects for the company. A good start is the persistent avoidance of the SVC – the capacity killer from the top.

Word choice – the third door into the mind of the public

The right word in the right moment has a large influence, whether you arrive in the consciousness of the listeners and readers or not. For this purpose all words are available. The back door to additional expression is provided by intonation and posture as well as pictures and sounds. The third door, or even portal, into the head of the audience, is the choice of the words.

word

This time we will look at nouns, which describe concrete objects and beings as well as abstract terms, which do not denote concrete ideas. As a way into the mind of the audience you can use keywords, stigma words, invented words, acronyms and synonyms.

  • Keywords
    are topic-related words that describe the substantial contents of a statement. They provide the information for the understanding and anchor it in the memory of the audience. They convey the actual messages and convictions that are not visible at first sight, like values, habits, presuppositions and the affiliation to a certain culture. The context, in which they are used, determines its meaning.
    Let’s look at the word liberalization in the context of negotiations for creating new markets (e.g. TTIP or TISA). Liberalization means here: Deregulation of the public procurement, release of anything that is not explicitly legally forbidden. Nevertheless the word liberalization has also positive connotations – liberal, tolerant, informal. However, the context creates the other meaning.
    Therefore you should bother to create an appropriate context when you convey a message, in order to enforce the desired effect of the words.
  • Stigma words
    are words that classify adversely, burden the text with negative feelings and divert attention from the core statements. Examples are words such as black people, in place of Afro-American, gypsy, in place of Sinti and Roma, or Business terms such as crisis, in place of difficulty, or propaganda, instead of advertisement. At the same moment these words can be positive for others and thus be flag words. A good example is the word socialism – for some people it is the perfect bogeyman, for the others a meaningful ideal. There is a danger that stigma words cause negative feelings within the target audience and thus superimpose the actual message.
    In business, there are equally loaded words. An example is error. Many people consider this word as negative, since defects or faults are interpreted as the consequence of conscious or sloppy misconduct. That most errors come from misfortunes, blunders or poorly planned concepts is not considered thereby.
    Therefore formulations should be checked concerning their effect on the target audience and be replaced with neutral words or even positive ones.
  • Catchwords/ invented words/ ad-hoc compounds
    should support the topic and, whenever possible, adopt the jargon of the target group, in order to increase the acceptance. Catchwords like innovative, flexible, dedicated and optimal can be translated (e.g. innovative=inventive or full of ideas; flexible=adaptable or mobile; dedicated=active or committed; optimal=best possible or perfect.).
    Invented words are built from parts of words and provide a comprehensible description of new meaning – Genglish (GErman + eNGLISH) the mixed use of German and English; Bollywood (BOmbay + hoLLYWOOD) the Indian film industry; Brexit (BRitain + EXIT) the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union; Bionics (BIology + techNICS) use of natural phenomena in the technology. In German you simply combine words to new ad-hoc connections – change-goal-corridor, strategy-trap, requirement-change-management, and risk-potential-deviation-analysis.
    The understanding of a message becomes difficult with these words, which have for the time of being no generally accepted meaning. Therefore it better to avoid these words or at least clarify them with an understandable interpretation.
  • Abbreviations/ Acronyms
    are parts of words and word sequences that are arranged to letter sequences. They are often recognized as letter word due to the lack of vocals and remain incomprehensible without background knowledge or explanation. Depending upon context there are more or less interpretations available (e.g. PLC= public limited corporation or Palestinian Legislative Council or Product Life Cycle; PS= power supply or Photoshop or Polysulfide; SB= see below or silver bullet or Santa Barbara; CP= communist party or contingency plan; MB= megabyte or men in black).
    For this reason these artificially created abbreviations do not help in conveying information, if they are not at least explained, when it occurs for the first time, and documented in a glossary.
  • Synonyms
    are words with a same or similar meaning. For example road can be replaced by the following words: Lane, route, park way, boulevard, country road, and alleyway. On closer look the synonyms supply additional meanings. The lane is the place where traffic takes place. A route is a marked-out road. A park way is a road lined with trees. A boulevard is a main street in a big city. A country road is a small, often unpaved road in the country. An alleyway is a road with high walls on both sides. There are also synonyms that describe a similar function from different perspectives. The word transparency has on the one hand the meaning translucency and light permeability. On the other hand it means honesty, openness and frankness.
    Due to the broad meaning, synonyms are only useful, if they provide additional information to the topic. For stylistic purpose synonyms avoid the repetitive use of always the same word, but they soften the messages.

The personal vocabulary is defined by the personal experiences, especially through newspapers, magazines, scientific papers and books that you read. In order to improve the vocabulary, it is inevitable to take care of the texts that other people write.

Bottom line: The word choice has a large influence on the effect of your texts and presentations. To use the right keywords, to avoid certain stigma words, invented words and abbreviations as well as the skillful selection of synonyms improve the understandability of your messages.