The steps in any risk branding effort should follow this simple sequence:

1) The Goal

2) The Portfolio that Supports The Goal

3) The Image behind the Portfolio

4) The Language to Support the Image

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The key is that branding is not created from a single experience.  It’s built over time and it’s built through sheer repetition and affirmation.

The Goal

What do you want to be known as?  That’s actually a huge question.  For me, it’s “The Risk Guy.”  And I didn’t choose the word “Guy” lightly.  “Guy” has a sense of the ordinary surrounding it.  Unlike the UK’s Dr. David Hillson (the Risk Doctor), I wanted to be recognized not for my academic wherewithal, but for my ability to translate risk down to the ordinary and commonplace.  I’m just a guy.

Do you want to be a risk “quant?”  How about the master of mitigation?  The crown prince(ss)  of contingency?  The marvelous modeler?  We need to know up front what we want to be recognized as if we’re going to lay claim to being effective at what we do.  If someone’s looking for a risk quantification expert, I point them toward some of my peers.  But if someone wants to be able to translate the challenges of risk into lay language, I’m that guy.

Saying that you want to be “good” at risk is far from sufficient.  That’s not really what we’re looking for here.  We’re trying to identify the aspect(s) of risk management that truly represent our capabilities and our areas of renown.

The Portfolio that Supports The Goal

I have a risk portfolio.  I have clients that I have supported, scores of presentations given and a host of workshops trained.  In each, I stress the accessibility of risk management practice to the everyday project or to the simplest echelons of the organization.  It isn’t the exclusive province of senior executives or those who have done statistical homework until they’re blue in the face.  It’s the province of every player on the organizational team.  Talk to anyone who has participated in a risk discussion with me through the years, and they’ll affirm that’s the message I send.  I send it in articles, in my books, in discussions with clients and in every aspect of my life.  And because I’ve captured that notion time and again (in the written and spoken word), I have a portfolio.

Artists have it lucky.  When they want to present a portfolio of their accomplishments and reinforce their brands, they need only identify where to find the folder or collection of their work.  It’s not hard for them to pin down what they’ve done.  For most of us in the corporate world, however, maintaining a physical portfolio of our accomplishments is somewhat more daunting.

If you’re in earnest about wanting to build a risk brand, then you need to start writing.  You need to start collecting.  You need to be able to prove that you have a body of work.  This article is a case in point.  While I’ve talked about this subject for over five years, I’ve never written the beginner’s article on how to make “risk branding” really happen.  When my peer asked for this type of guidance, it served as a powerful NUDGE to remind me that I had promised myself that it would become an element of my portfolio to reinforce my role as a  risk guru,and the risk “guy.”

Each time any effort is complete that reinforces our goal, we need to capture the documentation that goes with that achievement.  In doing so, over time, a portfolio of our risk brand evolves.

The Image behind the Portfolio

As we develop our portfolio, we need to be sure that we reinforce the image that goes along with it.  Imagine a risk quantification expert.  You have a mental image, don’t you?  He’s probably wearing a tie and is crouched over a computer monitor, running a Monte Carlo Analysis.  He’s a little on the nerdy side.  And every conversation is laced with some measure of statistics and probability.

Now, think about a “guy.”  If you envisioned a guy who lives to take his tie off, wears Converse All-Stars(r) (custom Chuck Taylor low-tops with the words “Risk Guy” embroidered on the heel), and whose idea of the perfect day is kicking around in an Aloha shirt, then you have my image.  I work to sell that image.  Why?  It makes me accessible, and by virtue of that, it makes risk management more accessible.  It’s not formal or stuffy.  It’s about doing what works, and what makes us comfortable in dealing with risk situations.

In building an image to mirror our portfolio, it’s important to take the time to think through the look, feel and general demeanor associated with someone in our “goal position.”  If we can identify what that person looks like and then build ourselves into that image, we’re in GREAT shape.

The Language to Support the Image

No single component of the image is more important than language.  Consistent use (and enforcement) of language is critical to the success of a risk brand.  What does “high risk” really mean?  If no one has defined it before you, it’s up to you!  What’s the distinction between a risk and an issue?  (One’s in the future, the other is realized).  But again, it’s a matter of whose definition will rule?

In most organizations, no one has laid out a comprehensive risk language.  While we may default to professional guidance (Risk Management: Concepts & Guidance, 4th Edition), we still need to ask whose guidance we’re going to apply.  By making these choices, we create our own language, and if we created it, we’re never going to be wrong!  That’s a very special place to be.  Those who control the language largely control thought.  And those who control thought, RULE.

Is this all that’s involved in building a risk brand?  Absolutely not.  It’s a starter kit.  It’s a few critical first steps and questions that need to be addressed in order to create a personal culture for how we will deal with risks.

More thoughts or feedback?  Please post them here!  Or e-mail them to me at carl (at) carlpritchard.com

We are now living in the era of convenience, and it’s damned inconvenient.  Instant responses, instant messages, rapid service, and quick turnaround are the hallmarks of our information age society.  The challenge with this era is that for all of the steps, processes and devices that have been created, as soon as there is any anomaly whatsoever, the processes grind to a screeching halt, and there’s no way to get around them.

I’ve lived through multiple examples in the past 24 hours.  Verizon sent me a flyer to upgrade my Internet service.  The flyer didn’t detail how much it would cost against my existing bundled plan.  To find out?  Eight phone calls, four attendants and one supervisor.  Inconvenient.  A public institution where I teach cancelled a class for lack of enrollment.  In a test, I decided to check how to register on-line.  I couldn’t.  I was told fax or phone only for continuing education.  Inconvenient.  I called my pharmacy to get a refill on a (non-narcotic) prescription.  Two weeks, four phone calls, no resolution, and no prescription.  Inconvenient.

When we’re asking the normal questions in the normal way and don’t have any anomalies, the systems we’ve created are a godsend.  Normally, when I order a prescription, it’s a phone call to a robo-voice and the prescription is ready by morning.  Normally, when a client is trying to muster attendees, they have the infrastructure to handle it.  But here at the dawn of the era of convenience, it doesn’t take much to throw a wrench into the works.  One out-of-the-ordinary question, and the system collapses.

Does this have ANYTHING to do with project management or management in general?  Yes!!  We fail to recognize our roles as pioneers in this society, and as a result, we are expecting superhighways as we traverse the Oregon Trail.  In order to overcome this, we need to keep a supply of old-time support on hand the moment the system breaks.  Organizations that hope to come across as customer-focused and high-tech need to recognize that individual responsiveness is going to be a hallmark when the era of convenience truly kicks into high gear.  And there are four steps organizations can take today to start coming across as truly convenient, as well as cutting edge.

1)    Limit the number of “touches” required to achieve a meaningful result.  Whether it’s a web-click or a “push 3″ response, set a maximum within an interface.  On the web, three clicks to a destination from the home page is convenient.  Four is tolerable.  Five begins to wear.  Six is a sign of inconvenient web design.  The same philosophy (and number of touches) should apply with phone service (whether automated or human).  If a customer is calling in and can’t get a meaningful answer to a question on the third transfer, there should be a default “guru” to support them.  For me, it was Ms. Campbell at Verizon.  If I had reached her after 10 minutes instead of 90, it could have been a great customer service experience.  She refused to hand me off to anyone else and shepherded me through an upgrade.  The problem was that it took 90 minutes to find her.
2)    If you don’t have customer service, don’t lay claim to it.  My repair shop promised me noon delivery on my car.  When I asked if they could guarantee that it would be totally ready to go, with everything complete by 2 PM, the tech reassured me that noon was their target, so 2PM was more than adequate.  At 2PM, they had 20 minutes left to go.  Had they promised 3PM, it would have been OK, but as a result, they disappointed a customer and made the experience inconvenient.
3)    Be honest.  The receptionist at my doctor’s office told me bluntly that she had “no idea how something like [what I wanted] would be set up, and only the doctor or his nurse could handle it.”  When I pressed her, she stressed that I was talking to the wrong person.  GREAT!!  That’s actually more convenient than stringing me along trying to placate me with platitudes.  And in our management and our projects, we need to remember the power of those three simple words: I DON’T KNOW (but here’s who does know and how I can put you in touch with them).
4)    Create the failsafe.  I know there’s a fear that everyone will default to the human being rather than the automation, but the reality is that many of the human beings at the long end of a phone queue are putting up with the grief of a badly structured system.  Angry customers didn’t start the call as angry customers.  If they had known that “If you’re on the system for more than 10 minutes, press *99 to speak to a supervisory agent”, they’d have had at least some sense that the waiting would have a payoff.  Tragically, most phone queues have no payoff, and the frustration they generate costs us customers.

The breakneck speed of technology is creating expectations that everything and everyone will respond at Internet speed.  The tragedy is that for the anomalies in our world, we’re still moving at a dial-up pace.  As long as the technology has not evolved to cope with the challenges that anomalies create, we need to factor in the failsafes to ensure that customers don’t fall through the cracks.  Every failure to do so widens those cracks, eventually creating gaps large enough for entire businesses to fall through.

Copyright 2010, Pritchard Management Associates, All Rights Reserved

By Carl Pritchard

I recently received an e-mail from a client asking for ways to ensure positive outputs and higher energy from his upcoming brainstorming session.  I suggested there are some ways to make brainstorms far more effective and to ensure you get the information you need and merit.

1)  If there are specific forms, formats or data sets you want to retrieve during the brainstorm, be sure to lay out templates of what “good information” looks like before you start.   For example:  If I just ask for Risks, I’m going to get one-word answers.  If I ask for risks, per the format of “<<Bad thing>> may happen, causing <<Impact>>, I get a much richer data set in a format I can leverage.

2)  Try a couple of different strategies.  Try the group experience (just ask the room), and then consider the Crawford Slip for another data set.  The Crawford Slip is the process of handing out slips of paper and encouraging cycle after cycle of written brainstorm responses on individual slips of paper.  If you want to vary it, consider asking for their input first.  Then tell them you’re about to look for a different type of input, and ask them to reply to the same questions…wearing different hats…”If you were the corporate home office…”  “If you were the senior vice-president….”  “If you were working on the support staff…”  You’ll get a dramatically different data set from each question.

3)  Tell the participants EXACTLY what you plan to do with the data, and what’s in it for them.  If they don’t know, it’s going to be hard for them to perceive value in their efforts.

4)  Remember the 15 seconds of silence (the American cultural threshold of pain for silence).  If no one offers input right off the bat, don’t worry.  Give them 15 seconds.  One of them will crack.  You just have to outlast them.

5) Toward the end, if you’re close to wrapping it up, tell them how many more ideas/thoughts you’d like to get on the table before you quit.  “I think if we get 6 more up here, we’ll have enough to develop something substantial from your data.  Let’s see if we can squeeze out 6 more…”  This gives them a limit and makes them more likely to contribute in the knowledge that their contribution isn’t dragging things out…it’s getting things closer to completion.

And all the basic rules….  Everyone gets a chance to participate.  No criticism of ideas until after it’s over.  Go until ideas are exhausted…

Copyright 2010, Pritchard Management Associates, All Rights Reserved.

For questions or rights information?  e-mail carl(at)carlpritchard.com

By Carl Pritchard, Pritchard Management Associates
carl(at)carlpritchard.com
At a dinner party the other night, I met a neighbor for the first time.  When I told her what I do for a living, she exploded in reply with “That’s what I would LOVE to do! How do you get into something like that?”

I fear my answers actually disappointed her, as they do a lot of people who ask that question.  I caught myself running through a dozen different techniques and strategies to get her consulting practice off the ground.  In my zeal to be helpful, I quickly realized that I had inundated her with too much information.  In the process, I may have dampened her enthusiasm for switching over to the glorious world of consulting.  The challenge in breaking into consulting is not that it’s overly difficult.  It’s that consulting is remarkably multi-faceted.  Great consulting is not the art of doing a single thing well.  It’s a function of having the capacity to take on a wide variety of roles, and do them all with a reasonable degree of efficacy.  And while you’re doing that, you have to continue to be amazing at your core competency.

In this series of articles, I provide my thoughts on key steps that you can take to get your independent consulting practice off the ground.  The areas we’ll cover include:

*  Infrastructure
*  Marketing
*  Self-Preservation

Each of those three general areas represents a wide range of different practices.   And while no single individual is totally capable in all of them, there is a need to ensure a basic skill set associated with each.  In infrastructure, for example, it’s not essential to be a librarian, but it is crucial to have the ability to store and retrieve large volumes of data at will.

No matter which aspect of consulting is under consideration, there is a consistent thread throughout.  The truly great consultant has an attitude of passion for the work.  It’s not enough just to be good at something.  A great consultant believes there is more to know and more to do, and believes opportunities exist within the knowledge and the work itself.

Passion is not an easy commodity to come by.  It must be innate.  It cannot be contrived.  My sister is a classic example.  Just this evening, I called her in my hometown.  Why?  It was the day after the judging at the Mahoning County (OH) Fair.  Year after year after year, my sister has brought home blue ribbon after blue ribbon.  Sprinkled in there?  Quite a few “Best in Show” ribbons.  The award?  $7.  My sister, Ginny, is clearly not in it for the money.  She is in it for the passion.  The best bread.  The best sweet rolls.  The best casserole.  She genuinely enjoys being the best.  At first description, you might think she has an ego problem.  She doesn’t.  In fact, she doesn’t display her blue ribbons, and many of her peers don’t know about her winning history.  She simply relishes her role as a blue-ribbon cook.

Ginny has the appropriate attitude to be the perfect cooking consultant.  Why?  Because the craft comes first.  She would be the perfect consultant because the art of what she does is the most important aspect.  Don’t get me wrong.  She wants to be recognized for it.  She appreciates the accolades, but first and foremost, it’s about the cooking.

For Ginny, if she truly wants to be a cooking consultant at some point, the key will be to leverage her current attitudes about her craft.  But at the core of it, her craft remains the most important thing.

If you can make the same claim, the first step down the road to being a great independent consultant is in hand.  If you cannot, it’s time to ask yourself what elements of your craft you can become passionate about.  And if you can’t come up with a viable answer, the answer may be that you may still need time to truly find your passion.

We often consider the juggling acts that are essential to our day-to-day lives just to get things done.  Work, home, hobbies, recovery time.  It’s challenging to try to keep all of the myriad projects we have up in the air at the same time.  Trying to balance the need to recaulk the shower stall against the need to answer e-mail against the need to get the latest proposal out the door is a daunting task at best.  And in the midst of such flurries of activity, the first things that generally get sacrificed are life’s pleasures.

While Americans seem to be becoming the society of instant gratification, many in our workforce are actually the masters of delayed (or even foregone) gratification.  The workaholic tendencies so many of us embrace (particularly in tough economic times) leave little or no window for rest and relaxation.

If you’re one of the guilty parties here, you may raise your hand now.

Hmmm….

That’s a lot of hands.

As I write this, I am preparing to have an opportunity to practice what I preach.  I’m teaching a class in just four days.  The class is “Managing Multiple Projects.”  What makes it special is that the class is on board the Carnival Cruise ship Sensation.  Seminars at Sea.  You have to love that.  My lovely wife, Nancy, is going along (odd how she doesn’t seem to join me when I have work in Detroit).  But as I gear up for this opportunity, I am rapidly coming to the realization that with 11 hours of training on a 72-hour cruise, I have a lot of opportunity to cram in there.  I don’t want to miss out on the Bahamas while work absorbs me.  But…the e-mail does need checked.

I’ve already begun to map out my strategy for the Nassau trip, and it includes a lot of the gospel that I preach in the Managing Multiple Projects course.  I’m setting priorities and affirming them with my partner.  I’m putting her in on the decision-making loop to help determine when and how certain work activities  will be woven in and when and how they will be taboo.

Work?  Taboo?  Yes.  From the moment the ship docks in Nassau, work is an off-limits topic.  No laptop.  No work-oriented conversation.

Carl?  What if one of your students approaches you on the docks with a question about the class?

I’ve actually thought about that.  For one, I plan to use this as a classroom example!  I will warn the students well ahead of time when they are my priority and when they’re not.  As the customer, they will be clear on where they fit in the pecking order and when.  When class is on?  They’re tops.  When we’re at sea and they see me in the hall, they can supplant my wife for brief questions, but not long ones.  When I’m ashore or tucked into bed?  My personal life will take precedence.  What will (hopefully) make this work is that they’ll know.  They’ll know up front.  They won’t be surprised to find themselves at different positions on my priority list.  And they’ll also know it’s not because they are being disrespected.  It’s because I want to show consistent degrees of deference across the various aspects…the various projects…going on in my life.

In watching the television show, Criminal Minds, I am witness to the most consistent display of how this is all done miserably.  The cast surrenders everything on the altar of work.  They have no personal lives (and when their personal lives are on display, it’s to show how they will run away from the joys in life at a moment’s notice to solve the latest crime).  Great television.  Miserable planning of the multiple opportunities in their lives.

What would make it right?  For one, the players who have some sunshine in their lives would actually spend some time there.  They would isolate those moments, keeping themselves fresh and refreshed by the chance to spend time away from the intense challenges of their positions.  For two, they would actually identify how and when their opportunities will usurp work, rather than always leaving it the other way around.

I had just such an opportunity recently.  After multiple months of serious back pain, a truly skilled pain specialist found an opening in his schedule that directly conflicted with some scheduled work.  Conventionally, I would have surrendered my back on the altar of work, but instead, chose the opportunity side.  I apologized to the client, rescheduled the engagement, and went in for in-office surgery.

My life is seriously looking up.  Why?  For one, my back doesn’t hurt nearly as much.  But in many ways, I think part of the healing process is that I know that I respected myself enough to actually commit the time to take care of myself.

This ties, in some ways, to what my sister, Ginny, says about the opportunities in her life. “I have never regretted a dollar or minute I’ve spent building a memory.”  She knows what she considers the great opportunities in her life, and those around her know it, too.  And they know if they want to get on her (very crowded) calendar, there’s a simple strategy.  Find a way to convince her that either they’re a higher priority OR it’ll generate a wonderful memory.  It’ll push their agenda up her priority list.  And in the process, it will make the experience more fruitful for all concerned.

(c) 2010 Pritchard Management Associates, Carl Pritchard

A look at the Project Management Tools and their Use

By Carl Pritchard

© Pritchard Management Associates 2010, all rights reserved

I was at summer camp the first time I really came  to the realization that Dad was right.  There’s a tool for everything, and every tool has a particular use.  For the next couple of years, I hope to populate this blog with insights on effective “tricks of the trade” for implementing project management tools.  It’s wonderful that folks find different ways to deploy the tools of project management, but it’s frustrating when they don’t realize that they’re bending the tools to their will, rather than exercising them for best use.

The realization I mentioned above came in crafts class at camp, pounding out little metallic ashtrays.  (There, that officially dates me).  All of  the other guys were hammering away at their the tiny rounded rubber hammers provided for this use.  I decided that if the round rubber hammer would do the job, a metal ball peen hammer would be even better!  Their ashtrays turned out rounded, smooth and perfect.  Mine looked like it had been fed through a chipper-shredder.

Every profession has the tools of its craft.  The challenge comes not when you know how to use the tool, but when you’ve found shortcuts to use or ways to abuse the tools.  In the “tools” category of my blog, my intent is to ensure that I stress both, but identify them as such.  I don’t mind that my kitchen strainer has been used to find snails in our pond, but I do want to know that it’s been abused that way so that I can take the proper redress (and run it through the dishwasher twice before our next pasta dinner).

As with all of my posts here, I’d like to stress one thing.  The posts are not the sum total of what I know.  But they represent what you need to know in terms of their ability to serve you both through their intended and unintended uses.

The Eastern proverb says When you’re a hammer…all the world’s a nail. My intent over the months and years to come will be to address what kind of hammer you are…and when all the world’s an ashtray.