Website thoughts

Looking to build a website for MMH.  Here are some thoughts.

Top quality / fashion-like quality imagery everywhere
Clear purpose / Mission statement
Direct Advice component


Video as the hero image?

Inspiration component - always looking for someone to come to the site an get something that takes the fire out of the situation.  You don't need to blab about it to your friends at the bar, drink alcohol on the commute home, or be on edge with your wife and family.  Get a fresh look at MM here.

Before you quite, come here.
 
Should there be a community component?  Will people want to interact with each other?
What if it we were somehow able to pair up a mm with someone more experienced and who was willing to provide the feedback.  would they want to be paid for this?  has to be a financial exchange.  Unless somehow this was the older (baby boomers) who were looking to do meaningful things.

news component
twitter - it would seem meaningful for people who are middle managers looking to greatly improve the quality of their Middle Manager life or move up the food chain, ie to executive management, that they would wants

Our purpose - we take a middle manager through steps in the process.  We meet them wherever they are in the ecosystem of middle management.

Use an image to describe the situation.  Behind the image is a page with content, with scenarios and solutions.

watch other people get angry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSD1b0KywpQ

- provde afresh things to think about and work on.


 - is there some sort of search engine intelligence we can provide that will allow us to filter the right articles to them?  Mostly looking to focus on content that MMH creates, but being social and praising the right content is also meaningful.

MMH Goals

Turning ordinary jobs into heavenly lifestyles

I want to create a place for professionals to go for insight into interpersonal business interactions.  Stories, inspiration, ideas, wisdom, new ways to approach a problem.

Should have a chat area
Place to sign up for classes
email address to send questions to

Need to write a book and get it published to create a little legitimacy.
(can I write a book in 2 weeks?)

Home page has pictures of professionals faces after they've experienced MMH results.
Happy, relieved, free, seeing this clearly, ready for new challenges, feeling refreshed,

how to deal with some very difficult situations through personal stories and lessons learned.

I no longer feel challenged

Whooooo.  VP of Sales just left.  Sounded like there was more to the story but I'm not going to ask.  Someone may tell but I'm not asking.  Very important difference in how you find out about certain things.  If someone tells or you ask.  This one I don't care.  I'm not asking.

It's important to understand personalities.  When I say that I don't mean the word personalities in a general way.  I mean in a very specific way.  If you understand personalities as a psychological term, you understand a basic rule.  Personalities are predictable.  By definition the personality is taking the person on a ride through life.  The question is how sold is the person on what their personalities tell them.

Back up.  This may be confusing.  Too complex, wrong blog title.  Simple.  Okay.  The guy who left nearly cost me my job.  He was being evaluated on an even platform with me.  I was shocked and offended when I saw what was going on.  This guy blew up at me on a Friday afternoon, screaming at me on the phone.  I challenged him back without screaming.  He was off.  In general this guy was unpredictable.  Sometimes I loved him.  He had an extremely endearing quality about him.  But depending on who he was speaking to, he could run you over.  He was smart too.  But he didn't think before he spoke.  Quite possibly I've heard him say some of the dumbest things I've ever heard someone say.

But to be clear.  6 months ago, the company was looking at me versus him.  I thought I was going to fly out of my bathing suite.  I built up a solid growth business and he's been mostly nothing but trouble, except he keeps his desk clean and his paperwork is on time.  I could see right through this guy and the entire exec team was supporting him, including the pres.  Not happy.  Oh no.  I took a huge deep breathe and went into the under-workings of my personality.  I prepared for work, not by doing work, but by doing the work.  The work, meaning work on myself.  Dealing with my anger.  Facing it.  Facing anger is like throwing darts at yourself.  Your trying to hit the target but you know if you do it's going to hurt the most.  Amazingly, when dealing with pain in this format, you can overcome it and the pain just kind of goes away. Minus the darts.

In preparing myself this way it allowed me to be more open and caring in the moment.  I could see and hear the other person without feeling I need to win or protect myself.  Pretty much is moving you up the ladder instead of falling down it when someone pushes your buttons.  

Being challenged is not at all fun, certainly when you're a middle manager trying to create some sunshine on your side of the sidewalk, but if you've done the work you can be there in the moment without having to jump back at the person.  It's basically a different existence.  And so ultimately this process will take you up the ladder and bring best of you out to the world instead of the automated you.  

I know a little self-help-ish, psychologist-ish type stuff.  But given my deck of cards, if you're not doing the work you will not make it.  Simple.  If you are not going up the ladder, you are going down.  There is no staying the same.  Today you may be a middle manager and feel totally stuck in middle management.  You ain't stuck.  You just think you are. 

Getting to Instagram

Big time event.  15 of us heading to a VIP / CEO / Celebrity black tie event.  Our technology will be front and center.  It's not a normal logical step by step how we got there but we did.  Hours before the event the marketing person who reports to me (I'm not a marketing director so there's a story here) and I respect his design sense, says to me 'Hey we don't have an Instagram account and from my research everyone there will be using Instagram.  It's a visual event and we're are going to be providing the best visuals. Twitter and facebook aren't the best visuals.  We need to be on Instagram.  

Great.  Now I need to get permission from the marketing director, who pretty much hates me and everyone who works for me.  She probably has disagreed, argued and put down 99% of the ideas me and the team have had.  Most of us have resigned to the fact that she's in her position and we're simply going to do everything we can to not have to work with her.  She can be quite pleasant.  But she's just not built to work with a team, she's built to be a commander of people who know nothing about style, social or communication and are willing to have someone make all the decisions for them.  That is just not the case with my group.  We are pretty passionate about what we do and we've got a clear sense of direction and how we need to communicate with our clients.  She disagrees.  You can see where this goes.  This has been going on for the last year.  Not fun, stressful for everyone.  

Anyway, the marketing designer who works for me is talented and on-spot.  He works for me and not her.  Very unusual.  Why you might ask is it set up this way?  Because the business can't move forward the current marketing group is as mentioned above and the design sense isn't there.  It's not going to change so I pushed, and the pres heard the call.  Also the VP of Sales randomly decided to let go 2 of the 4 corporate marketing people which provided the budget I needed to hire a dedicated marketing person to my team.  A win for the business all around.  A loss for the marketing director.  

Anyway, we need the instagram account.  I emailed her.  She happened to be out today but she had forwarded me an email.  So instead of just bulldozing what we need I wanted to see if she would accept the opportunity to be helpful.

Hey xxxx,
I wanted to run something by you.  I know you are out but I’m hoping you’ll get this and can comment.  We see an opportunity to improve our visual social media by incorporating Instagram for the event tonight.  This is something that I know you are in charge of and respect that.
 But in our event tonight it seems like visual imagery will be the best method for communicating via social channels.  We will be the imagery of the event.  So we were hoping, if you agree, to open up an Instagram account.   Let me know.  I’m available to speak if you’d like as well.  

It's funny actually. Because I thought of asking my boss or going right to the pres.  Nah.  Let's try and go direct and see if we can create a positive channel of communication.  

2 hours later she emails me back.

I am sorry but I cannot address this from where I am.

The kicker.  She copies her boss, the VP of Sales.  I love these guys.  She's gone.  There's not a collaborative bone in her body.  If this were her idea it would be done.  Now I don't want to nit pick, she's on vacation.  But it's something we need so take a step forward, be the boss and  say, 'hey it's something you need so why don't you let your marketing person set it up and start us off.'

She's got such.........okay I'm done.

Anyway.  I told my marketing guy, 'go ahead and create an instagram account for the company.  I'll take the heat.'  Yumm.  

Ton's of action on the account.  We're taking images, video, posting it, people are interacting and responding.  It's awesome.  The whole night my marketing guy is chatting with people at the event.  Gee someday I wonder if a department will have freedom to create and build the department it needs or if corporate oversight will always create the mind numbing and heart constricting mindset and decision making. 

Marketing is so much more fun when I can say yay or nay.  I haven't worked with a marketing director I like.  Not sure I ever will, at least at this company.  It's okay though, with my own guy we're getting things done.  It's just stressful.  He doesn't like her either.  Just not a nice person.  (She's a type 1, in the average range)

Well, we'll see in the morning what things look like on Instagram.  And then I get to break the news what we did.  Probably will take this through my boss or bring up in my weekly meeting with the pres tomorrow.

Sometimes heaven is a little painful

Had my semi monthly Executive meeting today.  The meeting went really well till the very end.  Not great when the whole meeting goes really well and at the end goes really bad.  Kind of makes me think I should have skipped that last topic till next meeting and just brought up a lighter subject.  Problem was I didn't have one ready.  (mental note for next meeting)

So what happened?  

Had the projector set up and had taken them through how an industry leader just included us in a huge press release.  It was picked up by major news sources and will be read by thousands.  Ohh the guns are a blazing.  Afterwards, went through how a hot new strategy was moving forward better than expected.  We're humming along in the meeting.  Not bad for 10 minutes preparation.  

The meeting was going as planned, everyone in the room was energized!  Then pulled out some icing.  New technology samples for everyone to touch and fell.  The samples looked great and certainly were impressive.  I discussed how I was going to use these samples to communicate with our largest client to expand their capabilities and grow additional revenue.  The news just got better and better.  We were rolling. 

I looked at the clock.  12 minutes till the hour is up.  My thought.  

'I should use the time I have with them.  They'll appreciate me trying to use their time wisely.'  

So to end the meeting, and I knew I was bringing up a subject that I was not totally worked through yet, I let it out.

I began, 'I have been thinking about the difference between a division and a department.  And it makes sense to me that many things we are doing are more difficult because we are functioning as a division and I think we should function more as a department.  There are likely pro's and con's to either direction.  But it's interesting to me that I've been seeing this clearer and see the real differences. I think the reporting structure has a lot to do with it.'

Now I thought I set the table for the discussion fairly well in tone and content for a discussion.  I was sincerely looking to share a thought and get some thoughts in return to help clarify what will be the best direction for the business.  Unfortunately the response had nothing to do with a discussion at all.  It was a reaction and it was immediate.  It all started with a smirk in the face and then it all came out.

'Of course you should be functioning as a department.  You divorced from this company and if you're going to come back you need to come back all the way and do things our way!  You know 3 years ago when you started down this path I knew you were wrong.  All the difficulties you've caused.  This business would be so much more profitable.  It should have stayed a part of the company.  That was a mistake.  There was no reason for you to separate out like that alienating yourself.  And now, now you want to come back.  You'll need to come back clean and you need to come back all the way.'

Wow.  Slow down.  I didn't know what happened.  One minute we're flying on good topics and then next we're bringing up sore pain points from the past.  Old wounds not yet worked through.  I definitely wasn't expecting that.

He continued.  (while he continued on this 'rant but little rave', I was thinking this guy is partly right and partly wrong.  Another thought as well, was that he's so wrapped up in his world he has no clue what he's talking about.  He meets the same people over and over again and he's a in a box reaching out.  He doesn't have a clear picture. 
 
Then he continued, '3 years ago you made a decision to do this and it was wrong.  You know you have caused a lot of people heartache and difficulty.  And it was unnecessary.  Totally unnecessary.  I don't think you're on board all the way or ready to come back either,.  And you won't be able to come back if you're not 100% on board but you better be.  That's what needs to happen.  You need to do things our way.  You need to jump in with both feet and be ready to do things our way.  

And he concludes, 'no one in the room is going to disagree with this.'

Pause.  Breathe.  Pause.

I mean I'm not the enemy over here guy.  Remember me.  I built a multi-million dollar business from nothing.  (not by myself of course).  Put the ball on the tee and wack it.  What did he want from me in that moment?  I stated something so incredibly obvious to him that he needed to bring up frustrating points about the course of how the business got built? 

My response is pretty much a blur needless to say.  Whatever it was I did say it definitely wasn't fantastic.  The good thing is that I didn't put up a fight or defend or attack (too much) in response.  But didn't stay cool enough, didn't stay quiet enough.  The best medicine I could have given him there was silence.  

The pres jumped in defending me left and right.  Same with the CTO telling a story he's told over and over again how I broke out of customer service, how he disagreed, till years later he finally sees that I was right.   

I need to share though.  It did bother me.  It was disappointing to hear the most senior exec member be stuck in the past.  Very uninspiring for the future.  This is the 2nd time in 3 meetings that he's lashed out on this topic.  There's clearly stuff going on.  Maybe some has to do with me and my group and most of it probably has nothing to do with us.  If I could psychoanalyze the situation a bit. 

He's been quiet all these years and now is his opportunity to vent?  Not a quality communication process happening here between middle management and executive management.  He's summarizing into very simple, aggressive statements that he believes are unequivocally true.  Yet, in most cases the topics he's commenting are debatable.  Right and wrong?  Not sure that exactly comes into play.  This was a business decision.  It wasn't wrong.  Did it have consequences? Absolutely but it also had its rewards.   He's buckling this down too far.  Oversimplification is under comprehension.  He's just not seeing what it took.  Guns were a blazing in those years.  We were just starting out and the 800 pound, 100 year old company didn't quite have the spice, flex or innovation in its bones to make it happen so I did.  Why are you upset about that?

Important to note:  This person (type 8) is very passionate and he cares very much about the company, it's important for me to remember that. He handles all the financials for the company.  And the last bunch of years have not been good.  The financials of the business unit I'm running as well are not awe inspiring either.  Certainly not where the executive team wants them to be.  When I think more deeply about this,   He cares a lot.  He doesn't like to create financial statements that look like these statement look.  He does nonetheless, of course, and he does it objectively but he doesn't like to see the numbers look this way.

So this hurt.  I think the decision I made way back when to do things in the way I thought the business needed to function was correct and solid given all the circumstances.  Looking back he wants to assess and find the holes where all the problems are?  That hurts.  Hey the middle manager who doesn't do everything right, sounds like a nice dumping ground for executive frustration and little backed up bitterness.

Had some ideas on next steps with him.  It'll be good.