That said, guest blogger John Munce (“Master Facilitator” and former Executive Vice President at Bank of America) shares with us some of his thoughts, and key learnings, pertaining to goal setting and achieving success with projects, programs and business challenges.

Goals, Grizzled Managers and Lessons Learned

By:  John Munce

There’s a standard answer I give when people ask me about my new year’s resolutions.  I say I’m giving up smoking. That always gets two raised eyebrows.  The first when people say, “Impressive!” The second eyebrow goes up when those who know me say, “But you don’t smoke!”

My smart aleck answer prevents discussion of my actual pitiful plans for self-improvement.  It also is a caricature of a lesson of corporate survival I learned at the knee of grizzled middle managers.  Only set a goal you’re sure to achieve. 

It was a hard political lesson for me. I’m the type who gets enthusiastic about what a team can do together.  I can get caught up in visions of a brighter future.  From bumps and a tumble or two, I learned how to turn my visions of the future into practical goals that still required a stretch.  My record of achievement wasn’t perfect, but I did calculate one time that I was above 80% on my stretch goals.

My wizened elders, however, worked on me to cut back on those stretches.  They counseled never to agree to a goal you couldn’t already see how to make.  None of this stretch goal malarkey.  Make sure you can get that bonus.

The trouble I ran into was that the projects, programs, and business challenges I faced constituted major changes that we didn’t know exactly how to achieve.  Instead of a goal like the grizzled managers wanted, such as “cut costs by 3.5%”, I had goals like, “introduce a new product that requires divisions to cooperate in a way they’ve never done before.”  We had a plan, but we also had to make it up along the way.

The lesson I took from those grizzled managers was useful but different from what they tried to teach me.  I learned that I had to do enough work to form a plan, to see a path to achieving the goal.  I had to evaluate the key unknowns, to identify the key problems to solve.  I had to identify the milestones to hit along the way to make sure I was still on course. But I did not have to know everything ahead of time.

So when I talk to folks a bout their new year’s resolutions in a business context, I ask a slightly different question than “what’s your goal for the year?”  I ask, “what would you need to do to make this a blockbuster success?”  From the answer to that, we can take the conversation into opportunities, to risks, to the foundation in place, to the plans they’ve made.

One thing I know for sure is what to think if I get an answer like, “we’re all set and have it under control.”  They don’t want to talk about it.  And I say, “I’ve given up smoking, too.”

About John Munce

John Munce is a Master Facilitator.  His trademark “twisted thinking” brings fresh perspectives to old problems.  Colleagues say he can find useful connections across all sorts of topics, tasks, teams, and issues.  After one product development session, a business owner said, “My head is spinning with ideas I never would have considered without you.”  He has led or joined six major process redesign programs from debt underwriting to customer segmentation.  He knows when programs bog down from getting too big or too complicated – experienced in keeping it simple, simple, simple.  John is a 30 year student of how people think and work in groups.  He has designed and led over a hundred sessions for problem-solving, process design, product development, six sigma quality, reengineering, planning, budgeting, and strategy.  He’s said to be magical at turning conflicting positions into a common approach a team can embrace.  John is a certified Process Leader and Facilitator for three-day Boot Camp Business Simulator©, a unique process redesign tool from The Tatham Group; a  Six Sigma Deployment Champion, Hoshin Planning leader, Project Champion, Design for Six Sigma, and Green Belt.

John has led, launched, or accelerated change in nine different business groups for a rapidly growing national financial institution.  The change programs ranged from customer service to system consolidation, from building a national sales process to rolling out technology.  John drove improved business units from capital markets to consumer marketing, from technology to investment management.  He has delivered P&L results for brokerage, mutual funds and investment management; sold off divisions and set up new firms; launched the makeover of the consumer banking systems; and rolled out programs of consistent service levels based on customer value across all consumer businesses. John served as the first process manager for a product that crossed seven divisional lines and welded together the sales, operations, marketing, and product management to accelerated sales goals.  John created sharp focus on target affluent customers and on the products to serve them and developed performance standards across teams.  He designed new service models that worked when piloted and the sales of target products exceeded expectations.  John led the development of an asset management account and guided all the stages from concept to naming, from operations to advertising, from training to sales.  The product was rated #1 by Smart Money.

Steve Jobs and Lessons for Project Managers

By:  Bryan Carey, Managing Director – DARTON and “blogger extraordinaire”

Bryan Carey, Managing Director - DARTON GROUP

I just finished reading the biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the life of one of the most influential men of our generation. I would specifically point out to those of us in the project management profession that there are many valuable lessons to be learned from this iconic figure (who in my estimation may have been the greatest change agent in the business world ever).

Although widely recognized as a marketing and technology guru, Jobs in my estimation was largely successful because of his project based thought process for running his business and bringing products to market. As a matter of fact, he may be the most transcendent business change agent in terms of an approach to executing projects that ultimately changed not just the business world, but the world we live in.

Make the complex simple

Jobs always spoke about designing his products in terms of what would be the simplest way for the customer to use the product. He was concerned about the customer experience from the get go and everything else revolved around that concept. From his perspective, it was addition through subtraction. He challenged his design and engineering teams to remove complexity and eliminate steps. The elimination of complexity was going on simultaneously at two levels – both from the number of steps required by the consumer to use the product and from the number of components that constituted the actual device (sounds like Lean concept to me). The experience and the technology were seen as two sides of the same coin and not one subjugated to the other. The beauty was in the synergies created by bringing equilibrium between the two.

Jobs saw himself as the critical facilitator between technology and art. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” The end result of a project in his eyes was found in the beauty of the simple design and the intuitive nature of its use.  It may sound esoteric in the measured and monitored world of current project methodology, but ultimately a project manager should be an innovator. It takes leadership to help business leaders and teams see through the complex and emphasize the critical/simple desired outcomes desired by the customer.

Focus on the critical few

When Jobs returned to Apple after almost a decade of exile during the 1990’s, he did a walk-through of the company and discovered hundreds of various initiatives underway. He also determined that Apple had lost its way in terms of the quality of the products being developed. Jobs called his board of directors and his most critical managers into a conference room where he drew a simple four quadrant matrix on a white board. The matrix identified two customer groups and two types of product categories. The message was that Apple would focus on four products only and eliminate the hundreds of other initiatives currently underway. Focusing on the few, and emphasizing quality over quantity, positioned Apple to become the company it is today. Jobs said “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” Any greenbelt is aware of the concept of WIP (work in progress) and we all talk the quality game. However, how many CEO’s actually live by these concepts? Jobs did so as a way of running his company and great project managers do so when running projects.

Ideas become reality through collaboration

Steve Jobs said “I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.” Socratic Method is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. This was the culture that Jobs created at Apple as he believed that the best work got done essentially through the active dialogue around ideas between A players that lead to creative solutions. Jobs eliminated PowerPoint presentations because he believed that if you knew your subject you should be able to talk about it without relying on props. He believed that these types of presentations got in the way of real dialogue.

Jobs eliminated the concept of divisions within Apple and built teams around the products being developed with line of sight from concept design straight through to the customer. He went so far as to design the new Apple headquarters complex so that all employees were funneled throughout the day to a centralized atrium. His thought was that people should not be static and apart, but should be dynamic and working together. By physically seeing many other Apple contributors from all disciplines on a daily basis a spirit of collaboration could be achieved. Too often it seems that today’s project manager is conditioned to mechanically move project teams through predetermined steps and checklists as opposed to helping to create an environment for collaboration. As Jobs emphasized, it seems that the greatest works are accomplished through collaboration and in my view the best project managers do so as well.

Wise words for the project manager in all of us

In reading the biography of Steve Jobs, I was most impacted by his weaknesses rather than his strengths. It might be said that in many ways he failed more often than he succeeded. To the largest degree he was an imperfect person both personally and professionally, but at the same time he was self-aware enough to learn from his mistakes. This too is a great lesson for any project manager and any person in general. It may be stating the obvious to say that the best change agents need to be open to change.

Again, I highly recommend the book and will end with one of my favorite parts of his speech to the graduating class at Stanford University (again a lesson for the project manager in all of us).

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Rochelle Rivas, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, DARTON GROUP

We are celebrating!

Rochelle Rivas, DARTON GROUP co-founder and Managing Partner, is among 30 Charlotte business and civic leaders to be honored Monday, December 5, by Business Leader at the annual Women Extraordinaire awards luncheon.

Each year, Business Leader honors the top women leaders of the South through its Women Extraordinaire awards. Award winners must be an influential leader within her company or business, with an extraordinary impact on its economic success and forward-thinking strategies.

Learn more about the Women Extraordinaire award here.

Congrats to Rochelle and her fellow award recipients!

Wishing you a

Thanksgiving

filled with

warm moments

and

cherished memories!

DARTON GROUP

DARTONGROUP.COM

]]> http://dartonequation.com/2011/11/23/happy-thanksgiving/feed/ 0 Darton Group Thanksgiving Table http://dartonequation.com/2011/11/21/look-back-and-plan-ahead-with-darton-university/ http://dartonequation.com/2011/11/21/look-back-and-plan-ahead-with-darton-university/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:38:51 +0000 Darton Group http://dartonequation.com/?p=2342 ]]> DARTON GROUP Consultants –

“Looking back…Planning ahead”

Most businesses spend time near the end of the year evaluating what happened in the past and making plans for the coming year.  Many business people fail to practice that same discipline. 

Join DARTON University for our next webinar where we will:

• Lead you through an inventory of challenges and successes of the past year
• Explore our self-limiting behaviors and thoughts
• Help you develop the basics of a strategic plan for 2012

Thursday / December 8th, 2011

9:00 am – 10:00 am Eastern

Remember that DARTON University offers webinars at no charge as part of our commitment to professional development.

Fast and Easy Registration!

Webinar class sizes are limited and are available to all DARTON consultants on a “first come, first served” basis. Registration closes 48 hours prior to each webinar event.

To register, please send an email to careers@dartongroup.com.

Be sure to include the date and name of the webinar in your email.

Questions?

Call DARTON at 704+525+9378

Nelson F. Everhardt, President, Everhardt & Associates, LLC

International Fraud Awareness Week continues and the DARTON GROUP team touched base this week with Nelson Everhardt who suggested we spotlight a topic of importance to financial services firms in our hometown of Charlotte, NC (more banking resources are headquartered in Charlotte than all but one other US city).  Nelson is President of Everhardt & Associates, LLC, an independent consulting firm specializing in proactive compliance solutions for the financial services industry.

The topic?

Anti Money Laundering (AML).

Nelson is a subject matter expert in AML.  He is a former Senior Vice President and Corporate Compliance Executive for Bank of America, where his responsibilities included the corporate-wide administration of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Escheatment Compliance Programs.  While at Bank of America, Nelson served the role of liaison with the bank regulators on bank information technology issues.

Let’s begin by providing a definition of money laundering.  According to Nelson, money laundering has traditionally addressed funds that are illegally acquired (often through money from drug trade, crime or corruption) and then “washed” through a financial institution to appear legitimate.  Nelson advises that the traditional definition has been expanded to include the movement of legitimate funds through a financial institution to fund potentially illegitimate activity, such as terrorism.

The financial services industry continues to operate under increased scrutiny from government agencies to take a leading role in the prevention of money laundering and potential terrorist funding.  As with other forms of fraud, the ability to detect and report suspicious activity is essential to combating money laundering.

Nelson suggests that there are several components that are critical to develop an effective, proactive and sustainable AML compliance program. The components include:

• Policy and Procedures that encourage vigilance and a commitment to deterring the use of a company for criminal activity
• Due Diligence and Customer Identification Program for a full understanding of each customer
• Risk Assessment to understand customer, product and transaction risks
• Suspicious Activity Monitoring with advanced technology to detect any behavior within the organization that is unusual and analyze it for risk
• AML Training

Nelson believes that these components, when working together, make up a comprehensive AML compliance program that is both commercially reasonable and effective in ultimately reducing risk to the organization by preventing use of the financial services institution for criminal activity.

Nelson has authored an informative white paper on this topic entitled “Meeting the AML Compliance Challenge“.  Click here to review.

For more information on International Fraud Awareness Week, click here.

DARTON GROUP has assembled a top-tier projecting consulting team of “fraud fighters” with expertise in internal audit, IT audit, credit risk, operational risk, BASEL, AML and more.  Call us at 704+525+9378 to learn more.

Donna Turner - SVP, Global Fraud Policy Executive, Bank of America

Donna is responsible for leading an organization focused on preventing fraud by ensuring a solid “risk versus reward” view of new products, processes, channels and changes throughout the enterprise and industry.

Donna joined Bank of America in 1995 and has held a variety of risk operations, risk management, strategy and process roles over her career with the bank.

THE POWER OF PREVENTION

By:  Donna Turner – Senior Vice President, Global Fraud Policy Executive, Bank of America

As fraud risk management professionals we often speak of highly of the notion of preventing fraud; that noble call to action where we stop the event before it even happens. However, do we really invest the time, money and resources to successfully managing this most critical element of the fraud continuum?

We have all had those days, those events, and those years where we found ourselves wondering “what if we had only thought about that in advance?” While the notion sounds simple enough, it truly is an investment in mindshare, committed and knowledgeable team members, and an ability to apply analytics to what otherwise may be construed as a fraud scare tactic.

Fraud Prevention Checklist

A simple checklist to assess your efforts and effectiveness will answer this question for you.  For each of the following four categories, give yourself five points for each resounding yes, three points for a sometimes and one point if the concept remains elusive.

Integration

• Is your team aware of and engaged in the fraud risk potentially associated with product launches & changes?
• Are they at the table to understand changing target markets, processes around fulfillment and servicing?
• Do you find yourself surprised at changes or feeling fully informed about the capabilities, potential risks & designed mitigants?

Definitions

• Is your team clearly defining the need for change within your product, channel & process teams?
• Do you have a clear sense of the magnitude of risk?
• Clear insight to the magnitude of opportunity if appropriately addressed?
• Do you know what metric you will be able to point to in order to understand if designed controls are as effective as planned?

Measurement

• Do you have confident and capable resources in place that can produce fact based assessments of the risk, again including both the risk and the opportunity if effectively managed?
• Do you have a sense of the existing or baseline performance of those elements in your current operating environment?
• Has your team given thought to the impact new controls being introduced into your operating environment may have on other control plans, your servicing protocols or even resource levels?

Control

• When it is all said and done; the product is launched; the process changed; the threat thwarted; the opportunity realized; can your team clearly and succinctly communicate that it was indeed the controls functioning as designed or are you left wondering if some other variable played a role?

Scoring

If you scored 15-20 points, take your team to dinner, give yourself a raise and take the afternoon off. You are effectively covering the foundational elements of fraud prevention.

If you scored 9-14 points, take a look at where your opportunities lie, and take this critical time as the year comes to a close to refocus your teams efforts to cover the identified gaps in the new year.

Less than 8 points look at the glass as half full. You have a significant runway of opportunity ahead of you, that when these simple steps are implemented will position you and your team for even greater success in the new year.

It is International Fraud Awareness Week and, for the 3rd straight year, DARTON GROUP continues to promote anti-fraud awareness this week as an Official Supporter of the movement.

This year’s event comes on the heels of a recent Harvard Business School Management Development Program class in which DARTON GROUP co-founders Rochelle Rivas and Mark Weber participated.  The class reviewed and discussed a case study on Enron – the former energy, commodities and services corporation known for willful corporate fraud and corruption. 

Key takeaways from the class?  Human behavior mandates that corporate fraud can’t be totally eliminated.  There is always the risk of fraud.  Effective anti-fraud leaders must take steps to increase awareness; to understand how to create cultures, processes and controls to minimize the risk of fraud; and to implement processes and the means to effectively detect and report fraud.

Fraud happens everywhere.  It has happened in our backyard here in the Charlotte, NC region (read the case “Former Bank Vice President and Co-Conspirator Sentenced to Prison for $11.2 Million Conspiracy” here) and it can happen in your backyard, too.

Last year, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) published its 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse. For the first time, the report included global data among the 1,843 cases of fraud that were studied.

Key findings from the 84-page report included:

• Fraud schemes among U.S organizations are costly. Among the 1,021 U.S. cases in the study, the median fraud loss was $105,000. Billing schemes were present in 27.6 percent of these cases, while corruption was reported in 21.9 percent of cases.

• Fraud committed from the top of an organization is the most damaging. While a large percentage of U.S. frauds in the study were committed by lower-level employees (46.2 percent) and caused a median fraud loss of $50,000 it was frauds committed by owners/executives (17.1 percent) that did the most damage with a median loss of $485,000. Frauds committed by managers (36.7 percent) had a median loss of $150,000.

• A slight gender gap still exists in U.S. fraud cases. More than 57 percent of the U.S. frauds in the study were perpetrated by males. However, this gender gap is narrower than what was found in cases from most other regions in the world, most notably Asia (86.7 percent male) and Europe (82.1 percent male).

• More frauds are detected by tip than by other means. In a trend reflected worldwide, the impact of anonymous fraud hotlines is clear, as 37.8 percent of the U.S. frauds in the study were detected by tip, followed by management review (17.1 percent) and internal audit (13.7 percent).

Read the full report here.

International Fraud Awareness Week

As an Official Supporter of Fraud Week, DARTON is actively working to encourage companies to examine their internal controls, educate their employees and executives about the risks of fraud and learn the skills necessary to identify and deter fraud in any situation.  Fraud schemes are extremely costly and continue for months or even years before they are detected.  Tips are essential to detecting fraud and this fact underscores the need for promoting awareness to foster an informed workforce.

As in prior years as an Official Supporter, DARTON will be promoting Fraud Week with the firm’s consultants and clients.  DARTON will be actively using the firm’s popular social media platforms (including its corporate blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) to help increase awareness.  Read DARTON’s press release here.

The ACFE is the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education.  Together with more than 55,000 members in over 150 countries, the ACFE is reducing the incidence of fraud and providing the training and resources to fight fraud more effectively.  For more information about the ACFE, visit www.ACFE.com.

Yes, tonight promises to be a good night.

Charlotte Trolley Powerhouse Museum

The DARTON GROUP team is celebrating our Third Business Anniversary this evening with a fun event called “CONNECT 2011” at the Charlotte Trolley Powerhouse Museum.

CONNECT 2011 will be a FUN evening of connecting + networking + celebrating with the Charlotte region’s top companies, community leaders and the brightest senior-level finance/accounting/project management professionals.

Thanks to all who contributed their time, talents, resources and support to make the past 3 years a success!  We look forward to celebrating with you this evening!

Tonight’s gonna be a good night!