I’ve been in a lot of meetings where a presentation falls flat. Why? Usually because there’s not enough context for the reader. When that happens, either people politely listen, get confused and slow down the presentation asking lots of questions, or start hijacking your meeting. How do you ensure you are providing the right context in your presentation to keep everyone aligned?

There are a number of concepts I’ve learned in my career which have to do with developing financial predictability. It’s a skill that has helped me both personally and professionally. Here’s the list:

I have now had some time to utilize various bank online capabilities. And I have come to the conclusion unfortunately, that not many employees at the firm are using the applications the way they want the clients to. For any financial firm who offers online capabilities, there are five things I wish they would do:

A friend was telling me about a meeting she was having with her financial advisor. She’s conservative, so she keeps a fair amount in cash, in another account at another institution. It’s not earning much, so the advisor pressured her to move the money under him to get a better return. She was inclined to do so “because I felt stupid.” Forget about the fact that he was going to earn a 1% management fee on the money, and at her tax rate, the interest she would earn would be tiny. So a few lessons learned about experts in general:

1. The one thing you will always be expert on is what you need and how you feel about it. It’s the job of a good advisor to help you get what you need and to care about how you feel. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s not.
2. Use “experts” for their knowledge to answer questions, but don’t assume they are more expert than you. I am always amazed at how simple questions take forever to answer. Recently, someone recommended a blood thinner…but it required weekly labs and food restrictions. My girlfriend told me to get a different med…so much better.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions…there really is no such thing as a dumb question. The only thing you’ll regret is not asking the question. Experts are there because they’re supposed to advise you…..so you’re supposed to be asking questions.
4. Never forget what motivates your “expert”. Advisors are often compensated on very clear metrics: e.g. net new money. If you think your needs override their need to take care of their families and make a good living, you’re mistaken. It doesn’t mean they’re bad, it just means you need to understand their motivation.
5. No matter what the situation, you are your own best advocate. Whether or not it’s financial, medical, tax related….no one will advocate for you like you. If you relinquish that to “an expert”, you’ve just given away your power, and your needs will be prioritized among a larger group that expert is responsible for. When you are your own advocate, you’ll always be number one.

I have found that in my career, I’ve had what I call pivotal moments. They are those moments where you are really tested….and the outcome of how you handle that moment can affect your career going forward. Sometimes because of the aftermath, but mostly because you have now learned “your way” of dealing with the issue. So some observations:

1. Good people tend to think it’s their fault when the situation doesn’t change. I see a lot of people take on a difficult situation the best way they know how, but because nothing really changes, they think it’s their fault.
2. If a talented person is dreading coming into work every day because of the situation, they will leave. Companies are dying for talent.
3. If a talented person is disappointed because their expectations were not managed, they will leave. For example, a promotion which doesn’t happen….and it wasn’t clear to the individual.

If you are the manager, it’s up to you to be vigilant about what’s going on with your employees. If your employee surprises you by leaving, you’re not paying attention.

As an individual, there are several pivotal moments in your career I guarantee you will come across:

1. An actively or passively unsupportive boss, or worse, a boss who is threatened by you.
2. A colleague who is actively or passively unsupportive.
3. A direct report who is not going to make it.

If you haven’t had one of these, that’s great. But it’s pretty hard to avoid these as you progress in your career. A few things to keep in mind: it’s not your stuff, it’s their stuff. But how you react to their stuff can affect your quality of life. What do I find that works?

1. Kill them with kindness. I know, that’s hard when you just want to kill them or avoid them like the plague. But believe it or not, it’s not personal….and when you come from a position of wanting to help, it’s pretty hard to resist and keep being threatened by you.
2. Be frank and honest when you need to be. Don’t let bad behavior go by, and don’t sugarcoat everything. It’s all about the tone: you’re pointing out that something didn’t happen that should have, and you need the person or the situation to change.
3. Get help when it’s over your head. Sometimes, the only way to satisfactorily deal with a problem is to go to hr. Now sometimes it can backfire on you, so make sure your situation is fact based. You have to assume that it won’t be kept confidential….but the right hr person can be invaluable.
4. If you’ve done everything you can, and you’re still miserable, consider a mobility move within a company. There’s a lot of capital that’s built in being a high performer…don’t just throw it away without trying to find another home.
5. If all else fails…….and you are miserable, start looking. But sometimes things can change. Someone I know was looking, and the opportunity fell through…but she ended up getting promoted.

Someone mentioned to me that she was having a tough time providing project updates for a Program Management Office report. Often, updates are either mundane or too detailed. Here are some lessons learned:

1. Tell me what I need to know. Not every detail or every nuance, but for this update, what do I need to know…is there a problem? Is everything fine?
2. Review your updates in sequence: what did you say the previous months? Are there key milestones which needed to be met? Problems which were referred to in last month’s update? If you line up all your updates, it should read as a coherent chronology of events…not disparate pieces of data.
3. If you’re spending more than 20 minutes on it, you’re overthinking it. People will read your update in less than a minute so keep it in perspective.
4. Read the update with fresh eyes. Is it clear….especially to someone who isn’t in the details, but is pretty smart? Updates typically get circulated to wider audiences, so be clear and don’t assume.
5. Well written updates are a test of editing more than knowledge. Write, then edit…and edit again. Boil it down to the essentials: not one unnecessary word or fact. Only the essence of what’s important.

I had a great English teacher senior year in high school. Whenever we’d ask him how long a paper needed to be, he’d say “As long as a piece of string to tie up the package nicely.” We’d look at him blankly….but 5 page papers and 60 page papers got As. Length didn’t matter to him…only the quality.

Processes are critical to the well-running of any function; unfortunately, it’s often overlooked because…well, it’s boring. But the great thing about process is that it is the way to ensure consistency. The analogy I always use is that the process is the recipe….it tells you how, not just what. Here are some lessons learned regarding processes:

1.Ensure you have the right metrics to determine the health of the process. Some metrics are rear-view mirrors, others try to forecast where you’re going. Both metrics are key, but it’s more important to have metrics you use rather than having reams of information. You know you have the right metrics when if you don’t see them, you’re looking for them.

2. Be vigilant on handoffs in the processes. Pain points are almost always from what you receive from someone else and what you hand off to someone else. It’s a relay race: how you receive the baton and how you hand off will determine how you win the race. File feeds: when, and from whom? Is it documented? Are they on time?

3. Tabletop exercise: review the process with critical eyes with all the owners of a process. Often, people don’t realize what you have to do with the data because you don’t receive it the way you need to. People get used to doing things a certain way. Reviewing the process with fresh eyes can create re-engineering opportunities and reduce re-work.

4. Cross-train and document who knows what process and who’s got entitlement to what systems. Nothing is worse than a time sensitive, critical process …and the one person who knows how to do it is out unexpectedly.

5.Continually raise the bar. If metrics are always green, and never amber, the standards might be too easy. At some point, it may be too expensive to try to always hit a 100% SLA. But maybe the cycle time for response time should go from 5 days to 3.

There are pivotal moments in your career…both as a manager and as an employee, and compensation is often one of them…receiving or delivering. Lately, I have been hearing story after story about compensation, and here are my lessons learned…

1. If your employee is shocked/surprised at their comp numbers in a bad way, that’s a problem. Either their performance wasn’t clearly communicated, and/or comp expectations weren’t managed. No one should be shocked. They might be unhappy…but they shouldn’t be shocked. You haven’t been as clear as you needed to be.

2. If you are giving someone a zero increase or bonus, you are telling the person you want them to leave. Unless there is a catastrophic event (like 2008), there is no other explanation. If someone isn’t expecting it (e.g. foreshadowing through a performance evaluation), they won’t get over it.

3. If you receive an increase in base and/or bonus, be grateful. Understand that making comp decisions is hard. And if you just got promoted, understand you’re supposed to be at the lower end of your grade so don’t compare yourself with other more experienced people at your new level.

4. Comp discussions should be short and to the point. I have heard crazy stories where managers try to justify their decisions “I didn’t know what to give you because I know you have kids in college” or “do you want the $5k bump because then your bonus gets accrued” or “I had nothing to do with the number”. Give them the number, provide some context (e.g. “you did a great job this year so we tried to reflect that in your bonus.” is one phrase I have used). That’s it. It’s not meant to be a long discussion about why…..that’s a different conversation for a different day.

5. Depending on your company, compensation varies in the proportion of art and science. Don’t try to over analyze it, don’t try to compare your numbers with someone else’s. If you think you are being underpaid, have that conversation with your manager, but not at the moment you get your comp numbers .

One company I worked at had a great process: first, they had bands for base salary based on title and function. So as a hypothetical example, if you were a VP, you knew your band was $70k to $150k. If you were at $145k, you understood you were at the top of your range and shouldn’t expect a base increase. The logic was that the marketplace price for the role was $150k at the top of the range. If you wanted to make more, you needed to get promoted to the next band or perform at the highest level to get the maximum bonus. Your bonus was based on guidelines set based on your performance, which had 2 grades: G and L. G was for goals-accomplishments. L for leadership behaviors and competencies. Personally, I liked this process the best.

One day in your career, you’ll be in the seemingly enviable position of having multiple jobs to choose from. While it seems great, it can also create a lot of stress on choosing the right one. Here are a couple of questions I think are useful to ask yourself.

1. How much power will you have in the new job? Can you really say no? If you can’t say no to a project or have a say in what’s going to happen…you might be a figurehead hire….someone who looks good, fills the role, but isn’t going to be able to do much.
2. What is the journey for the next 2-3 years? Is it evolutionary (slow change over time) or revolutionary (fast with lots of casualties)? Are you a wartime or peace time general?
3. Do you trust your boss? Not whether or not your boss is a nice person, but do you fundamentally trust them? It’s a yes or no, split second answer. Listen to your instincts.
4. Will you be able to get things done? Sometimes, you can tell the situation is highly political, with lots of people with different agendas. Ask questions in your interview on how disagreements are resolved between people.. e.g “in my old world, there was a lot of infighting between operations and sales. Does that happen here?”
5. Pretend you’re in the job. Gut check: are you happy/excited/nervous or are you anxious/”oh S&*# what did I do”? You can have some trepidation….but keep you up at night anxiety isn’t good. It’s not going to get better.

Someone asked me a great question. They have a direct report who is working on a development area…and while they want to change (high will), she isn’t seeing the change in behavior she’d like to see. So here’s my advice..the 3 Fs.

1. Frequency: if you want to help someone change behavior, the feedback needs to be constant: every time you observe the behavior happening or not happening. The key is that you’re making them aware of when they’re doing it….they might know, they might not. You’re the rubber band on the wrist every time the urge or situation arises for the individual and you observe the behavior.
2. Fairness: give feedback both good and bad, right after the event. The key is to keep the feedback fresh and delivered directly. It could be anything from “I saw that you stopped yourself from reacting to the negative comments made, and you took a moment to come back with your response” to “whoops, looks like we did the thing we’re trying not to do.” But do it for both…you need carrot and stick.
3. Faking: sometimes people need a verbal “go to” phrase when they get in a jam. If someone feels caught off guard in a meeting, rather than trying to create an answer on the spot, a phrase such as “That’s a great point, let me look into it and get back to you” can be useful. If you’re losing the attention of the audience, it can be helpful to ask “Does that make sense?” rather than re-explaining what you think people didn’t understand. Another trick is to have a code between you and your employee, e.g. when you move your phone from the right side to the left side, they need to stop talking and wrap it up.

It’s hard to break out of patterns. But when you see a particular behavior which is detrimental to an individual’s ability to contribute, it’s often the one thing which can hold them back.