You call it 'feedback', they hear it as 'criticism'

Let's start with some level setting and definitions:

Feedback (noun) - reaction to a process or activity, or the information obtained from such a reaction

Criticism (noun) - an ​opinion given about something or someone, esp. a ​negative ​opinion, or the ​activity of making such ​judgments

Feedback, especially when you fold in the more technical elements or applications of the term, (like feedback from a machine or from some kind of industrial or mechanical process), more or less connotes neutrality, impartiality, and crucially, accuracy. Sure, sometimes feedback slants negative, but it should be accurately negative, if such a term exists. Because when negative feedback gets interpreted by the recipient of said feedback as being unfairly or inappropriately negative, then it ceases to really be feedback at all, and becomes criticism.

And while most folks seem to appreciate and respect honest, accurate feedback, not nearly as many are down with taking accepting criticism, or for that matter, critics.  In fact, many really creative, innovative, and talented folks, the ones everyone is trying to recruit and retain, have little time for critics.

One example:

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius faced plenty of criticism in his career. Sibelius's response to criticism was dismissive: "Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic." 

If you have decided to throw in with the current trend and ditch the annual performance review process (that flawed as it is, has likely served its purpose over the years), you are going to have to get better at assessing how people are interpreting the 'feedback' you and your managers are now laying down on the reg.

One of the main reasons that the traditional performance review process has failed many organizations is that it only provides any kind of feedback to employees on an annual basis. Even if the feedback was kind of terrible, at least the employees only had to endure once a year. So sure, by making the process more regular, more frequent, and less formal solves most of that 'recency' problem.

But more and more regularly scheduled feedback does not by itself make anyone or any manager actually better at giving said feedback. And if more feedback simply adds up to or is interpreted as more criticism, then 'modern' performance management won't be much more effective than traditional performance management has been. 

Make sure you are not setting up managers (and yourself) for failure simply by taking an ineffective process, changing its name,  and asking people to do it more frequently. 

Remember Harvard Graphics?

I saw this clever post yesterday, titled Computer Science Courses That Don't Exist But Should, and one suggested course in particular really stood out:

CSCI 3300: Classical Software Studies

Discuss and dissect historically significant products, including VisiCalc, AppleWorks, Robot Odyssey, Zork, and MacPaint. Emphases are on user interface and creativity fostered by hardware limitations.

While I am not nearly geeky enough to know all of those old products, (the only one I recognize is VisiCalc, and I never even used that), it made me think back on my introduction to software and workplace technology more generally.Pretty slick UI, right?

And the one 'classic' piece of workplace tech that I remember most fondly, for reasons I will share in a second, is Harvard Graphics, the first general use charting and data visualization tool to gain acceptance in the office. In the late 80s and maybe a little into the early 90s, Harvard Graphics was the go-to tool for creating at that time were really amazing bar, pie, line, and other types of charts that today we would just laugh at for their simplicity. But pretty soon Microsoft Office took over the office, and Harcard Graphics pretty quickly fell out of fashion.

But I loved my time with Harvard Graphics. Back in the day, when the first colorful stacked bar chart of regional sales broken out for the last 4 quarters emerged from the plotter, (look that one up, kids), and I marched it in to the CFO's office, suddenly I was looked at not like the 22-year-old kid who knew nothing, but as the 22-year-old kid who created something cool.

After getting a glimpse of what the HG program could do, the CFO started setting me off to make more and different kinds of graphical representations of our financials that would be used in exec meetings, sent out to the regional presidents, and often tacked up on the wall in the CEO's office. No one would ever tack a boring looking income statement on their wall, but a 3-D multi-colored bar chart of gross profit margin by product segment? That was high art to some of these guys, and I was the only person in the office, (probably because I could not add much value anywhere else), that was able at that time to produce these charts.

That simple little program, and the rest of the office's reluctance to embrace anything new or seemingly complicated, helped me cement a reputation as someone clever, useful, and for being what then passed for technically savvy - which make no mistake helped out your career as much back in those days as it does today.

Harvard Graphics got me at least two raises I am pretty sure.

Ok, the walk down memory lane is over. Have a great weekend and think about this little tale the next time some new and scary and complicated technology shows up in the office.

It just might be the one that gets your work tacked up on the CEO's wall. 

Uber drivers: Employees, contractors, or something else?

A primary issue with the so-called 'sharing economy' (companies like Uber, TaskRabbit, Lyft and a bunch more), is a classic HR issue: whether or not the people delivering these kinds of on-demand services should be classified as independent contractors, or regular full or part-time employees of these companies. 

Uber has argued, (sometimes unsuccessfully), that it's drivers are actually independent contractors as each driver gets to choose when and where they work, provide their own vehicles, and usually have other sources of work/employment besides working as drivers of the Uber service. The arguments for classifying Uber drivers as regular employees center around the significant rules and conditions Uber sets for the delivery of the service, its driver rating and evaluation system, and the types and conditions of the vehicles that drivers can use.

This 'contractor vs employee' argument is going to take some time to play out in the courts, in the court of public opinion, and maybe even in the next presidential election. And where your take falls in this debate seems to me is mostly going to be influenced by your own capacity for risk and willingness to take ownership of your own career. But at least in the case of the 'shared ride' services like Uber and Lyft, this debate is probably only a temporary one. Soon, perhaps as soon as within the next 5 years or so in some areas, it won't matter if the Uber driver is an employee of Uber or an independent contractor, because the Uber driver won't be a driver at all.

Check this quote from 2014 by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick during an interview on the ride-sharing service:

During the interview, Kalanick was asked what he thinks of self-driving cars.

"Love it. All day long," said Kalanick.

"The reason Uber could be expensive is you're paying for the other dude in the car. When there is no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere is cheaper. Even on a road trip."

Kalanick said that self-driving cars ordered up through a service like Uber will eventually bring the cost of ridership so far down that car ownership will "go away."

At least in this exchange, the Uber CEO had clearly envisaged a world where the 'employee vs contractor' discussion has been rendered moot, and the drivers, 'the other dudes in the car', transitioned out of whatever kind of employment relationship they had (or didn't have), and the costs to the customer driven down since the 'other dude' is automated away.

And I think this, this threat, (and likelihood) of automation of this kind of work, and for 'normal' taxi, truck, and even limo drivers, is the really important discussion that people who care about the future of work and workers should be having. Whether or not some Uber driver is a contractor or an employee in 2015 is mostly an issue of regulations, taxes, and some benefits. It matters, but only in a limited sense if the real future of work is not really about employment status classification but rather about if there will be human employment at all.

Have a great weekend!

At ESPN Product beats Talent

Recently cable sports behemoth ESPN, which likes to bill itself as 'The Worldwide Leader in Sports', announced on its website that it was not renewing the contract of well-known personality Keith Olbermann, who has had a long and checkered relationship with the network.  This announcement follows fairly closely on the heels of ESPN deciding to not renew the contract of perhaps the network's most high-profile individual talent, Bill Simmons, editor of the sports and culture website Grantland, and host of the most popular sports podcast, The BS Report. In both cases, the network executives elected to move on without these high visibility, high maintenance, and high compensation performers for a couple of reasons, one more interesting than the other.Simmons, enjoying his time off

At first glance these moves are straight up cost-cutting measures. It has been widely reported that ESPN's parent, Disney Corp, is looking for significant cost cuts at ESPN, as the sports division has seen a pretty dramatic increase in costs, primarily the rights fees it has to pay to sports leagues like the NFL and NBA for the rights to broadcast games. Increasingly in the heavily fragmented and competitive world of entertainment, particularly TV, live sports games, (along with awards shows), remain one of the very few types of TV shows that require and generate 'live' viewing. Therefore the value of these games has skyrocketed, the leagues recognize this, and are justifiably getting literally billions of dollars of fee increased from cable and broadcast networks for the rights. So, ESPN costs are going up, people like Olbemann and Simmons represent lots of salary costs, so simple math makes (and made), them both vulnerable.

But the other reason the two personalities were jettisoned is perhaps more interesting and instructive to the rest of us. ESPN, as we can see from the sports rights fees issues above, is essentially in the business of broadcasting live sports events - NFL game, NBA games, MLB games, etc. That is the 'product' they provide to their audience and sell to their advertisers, and as we see above, pay tremendous and increasing fees to acquire. Everything has to be about generating an adequate return on those investments. People like Simmons and Olbermann, (and hundreds of others at ESPN), exist mainly to enhance the product - talk about the games, analyze the strategies, provide insight to the outcomes, and be entertaining while doing all of these things. But none of those things are the actual product - they only support the product. Simmons and Olbermann are more or less the back office, while the folks that acquire and produce the games, (and sell the ads), are the revenue generators. 

Simmons and Olbermann are (mostly) Genral and Administrative costs to be trimmed, not significant Top Line drivers, (it has been reported that Grantland has never been profitable and podcasts, even Simmons' are notoriously difficult to monetize, and Olbermann's show was not a big revenue producer).

And when you are G&A, no matter how funny and glib and well-known, your heads are always going to be first up on the chopping block when budget cuts are looming. You have to understand where you fit in the organization, not just on the org chart, but on the Income Statement.

At ESPN, and I suppose where you work too, Product drives the Top Line. Not all talent does however. And good luck to folks who can't tell the difference.

We don't ask you for free iPhones

In case you missed it, pop star Taylor Swift laid the smack down on one of the world's most powerful corporations, Apple, when her pressure made Tim Cook and company back down on their plans to not pay artist royalties during the three-month free trial period for the new Apple Music service.

For more details, here is the gist of the issue, from a recent piece in The Atlantic:

Swift had intervened in a struggle brewing for weeks between Apple and the independent music labels, publishers, and artists it was negotiating with to license songs for the company’s forthcoming on-demand streaming service, Apple Music. The sticking point: To lure customers to sign up upon launch, Apple would offer a free three-month trial period, during which, it proposed, it would not pay artists when their songs were streamed. Swift took to Tumblr on Saturday to explain she would withhold her most recent album, 1989,because Apple’s terms were “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.”

After digesting Taylor's take, Apple relented, and stated that they would, in fact, pay streaming royalties to participating artists during consumers three month free trial period. 

So Taylor was able to win, to make the corporate behemoth blink, and get them to change their stance on paying artists for their work, even as they were themselves giving away that work during the three month free trial period for Apple Music.

What can we learn or at least consider more generally from the Taylor v. Apple drama?

Three things that I can think of...

1. People just can't be expected to work for free. It doesn't matter if you are Taylor Swift and would not really be impacted by missing three months worth of streaming royalties or if you are an emerging artist that is looking to make there mark, giving away creative content to giant corporations is not sustainable for most artists. In a world where corporations of all kinds are desperate for ideas and content, the idea that creators should just give away that content is insane.

2. Individuals can amass tremendous influence - if they work for it. Sure, Apple is the largest company in the world. But Swift, even as an individual, has earned influence and leverage from her smart development and cultivation of her fans. She interacts with them, gives them significant attention, values them, and thus has created a fiercely loyal following. Even one person can match the power of a massive, global brand like Apple.

3. The only way for anyone to have power and security is to be a creator. Apple and Spotify and Tidal all rely on the creative output of thousands and thousands of creative artists for their product. Most of these artists individually don't have the popularity and power of Swift and thus can't wield the power of Swift. But, together they collectively comprise all of the product that Apple and Spotify are trying to monetize. And beyond that, being a creator, a creative, is one of the only ways that anyone has of ensuring their own long tern sustainability and viability. Your creative work is the only thing that distinguishes you from everyone else, and even the robots. Guard your work carefully.

I am pretty sure I would not be able to recognize a single Taylor Swift song. But I do recognize her smarts and her foresight.

Nicely done, Ms. Swift.