Do What You Love, Love What You Do!

This past week I was one of the luckiest workers in the world.  Why?  I was doing what I love and I was doing it for a living.  Life is good.  It helps that I am married to a perfect woman and that I love my wife and kids.  It helps that I am a grandpa to the most awesome little grandson in the world.  But, last week all of the stars aligned.   Last week I was also doing what I love for work too.  This past week was the inaugural training event for grAVITation TECHnologies, LLC.  I was reminded what I really love doing and what I believe I was meant to do - training.  I love helping others advance their careers and to grow in their knowledge in AV/IT technology and business matters.  It probably helps that I am a ham and I love an audience.  Being somewhat technically savvy and a fairly good communicator and a wannabe comedian makes training my sweet spot.

What is your sweet spot?  Are you doing what you love?  Are you doing what pays a fair wage?  Are you doing what you can do better than anyone else?  If you can answer all of these questions with YES, than you are in your sweet spot.

I am grateful to Pro Sound and Video in Florida for helping to remind me where my sweet spot is.  This class was full of 20 awesome professionals that helped to bring out the best in my training technical abilities, communication skills, facilitation expertise and strong passion for training.  To them I say a huge THANK YOU!!!  Pro Sound and Video in Florida (and Los Angeles, CA) is a full service design-build audiovisual, communications and collaborative technology integration firm that provides solutions in entertainment, travel and tourism, corporate, government, house of worship and sports complexes.  This class was made up of an awesome team of people from Pro Sound and it was a great group to spend my first event back in the training saddle with.  I strongly recommend Pro Sound for your upcoming integration projects.

Finding your sweet spot

Doing what you love:  This is not just limited to the one thing that you think you were meant to do or the one thing that you dream about.  It does not have to come to us like American Idol contestants or actors that are finally discovered after waiting tables in Hollywood.  This can be that thing that just brings you peace or makes you feel complete and/or content.  What is it that allows you to feel well rounded and like you are contributor?  It can be the thing that answers the question, do I feel good and happy about what I do?  It takes a lot of work to find what you love doing.  You have to try many things to really find the things you are good at and that are good to you (those are usually the things you love).

Doing what makes a fair wage:  You don't have to make big money doing what you are doing, but it should be fair.  Are you making a comparable wage to what others make in this field and can you live comfortably doing so?  You should not have to sacrifice too much to do what makes you happy.  It would be counter to the goal if you have to sacrifice your way of living for happiness.  Happiness is balance and therefore requires a fair wage.  There are ways of finding the right wage for doing what you love by adding things you love as added responsibilities to what you currently get paid well for or vice-a-verse, adding things you get paid well for to the things you love doing.  It does not have to be an all or nothing.  I was a sales person for a long time and I loved it only because I was able to incorporate a lot of training into my sales techniques.  Because I could do both, I was paid fairly and was happy at what I did.

Doing what you do better (or different) than anyone else:  You will be able to do what you do best for a long time and remain happy at it for a very long time if you are doing it different (and add value) or better than anyone else.  You need the competitive edge to do something for a long time and make money at it.  If you can't compete at what you love it will have to remain a hobby and if you are trying to do a hobby for a living it can become very expensive.  In business if you don't know what you competitive edge is, you can't win.  If you want to do what you love for a long time, know how you do it better or different than anyone else and focus on that.  If you have ever been through my training you would likely agree that I do it like nobody else.  My training sessions are very unique.  I can almost guarantee that you will have fun,  That is my competitive edge.  If it comes down to it, I will educate you better than most AND you will have fun doing it.  I am, after all, (as one dear friend puts it) the "2010 Edutainer of the Year" (His spin on InfoComm Educator of the Year).

Bottom line is I love what I am doing and this week I was reminded of that.  I re-caught the bug and I am back 100% training and consulting.  Why? Because I love it!  I am one of the lucky ones who gets to do what I love for a living.  Now hurry up and book your training with grAVITation TECH so it stays that way!!!

Generational AV/IT – Security Matters

This week my daughter and I have been working on our presentations for InfoComm.  That’s right.  This year we get to present together for the first time ever.  Some of you met my daughter when she was about 8 or 9 when I first came into AV and now she is teaching in AV and IT.  This is a big deal for both of us.  WOW! - time flies.  We are presenting about Secure AV.  Our portion of the topic is about AV/IT conversations and the generational difference in AV/IT technologists of today and the ones of my day (old dogs). 

I was an IT manager back in the day, more years ago than I care to admit.  Back when I was an IT manager our favorite phrase was “not on MY network”.  And, back then I could do that.  It was MY network.  The users of MY network had privileges on MY network, but I was in complete control and most of the technologies and protocols were a “black art” to my users.  If a user had a problem, I could go to the server room and “reverse the polarity of a tachyon beam and recharge the dilithium crystals” and all was fixed.  All that usually meant was that I rebooted something, but they didn't need to know that.  Not to say I didn't have it rough. C’mon, I was a network manager on December 31^st 1999 and stayed one through January 1^st 2000.  I had my trials.  But, there was beauty in that my customers had no idea what I did.

Today my daughter and son are both working in the IT world.  As much as they both tried to get as far away from IT as they could, they got sucked in.  I couldn't be more proud.  My son is a NOC engineer for a large email marketing company and my daughter is a security analyst and network/communications specialist for the United States Marine Corps.  As a Corporal in the Marines and a network security specialist her job has its challenges, but adds the fact that her customers build their own high speed networks at home so they can game, stream, video chat and countless other bandwidth and network intensive tasks amazes me.  Those same customers come to work every day and demand that they be allowed to BYOD or access their files from home on some of the world’s most secure networks.

So if you ask me if there is a generational divide in AV/IT from today and yesteryear, I say, heck yes!  And I sure do miss the good old days, but I am glad I kept my certifications (CCNA and CCNA Security) up to date and that I kept learning.  I recommend all my peers (you old IT/AV folks) do the same.  Times are changing… security, security, security.

Delegate Don't Relegate - Leadership

I was recently told by a business owner and successful entrepreneur that they were not "a leader".  They admitted they know technology and operations but lacked true leadership skills.  Their solution to this challenge was to hire outside to bring in "leaders" for their team.  I can't help but think about how sad that is for this business owner and for their employees.   How cheated the employees must feel to be led by someone who doesn't consider themselves a leader and how much the boss misses out on when they don't take on a leadership role.  It is a blessing and responsibility to be in the role of leader.  In an earlier blog I talked about career stewardship, but i didn't get to go into detail about how an important part of that stewardship responsibility is guidance and direction (in a nutshell - leadership).  As part of that stewardship responsibility it is the business owner's position (or anyone who grows into a leadership role) to grow into that role.  Your team is counting on it and you owe it to them.  You can delegate some of the aspects of leadership, but you can never relegate your leadership in its entirety.  If you do, you risk having less respect than if you had never taken that role.  You owe it to your team to respond to the position they have entrusted you with by acting in their interests instead of pawning it off to someone else.

Here are three key aspects to delegating your leadership and not relegating it completely:

1.  Vision and Values - You should actively participate in the vision and values determination.  The entire team must know that the direction of the collective is set by you.  Of course a group of managers should be used to guide the direction of the team, but you as the leader should set the pace.  No one should wonder what you believe the company is capable of and what you dream for them.

2.  Goals and Targets - As the leader in your organization your team needs to know exactly how you are measuring their success.  This is not only in terms of revenue and margins, but other measurable and objective means of setting targets and goals.  These need to be short, mid and long range goals.

3.  Mission - This isn't just the blah, blah, blah statement on a plaque or on the website, but what is your company's make meaning?  More than compensation, people want to know they belong to something bigger than themselves.  Can you put a message behind what your company stands for? Can you lead that "mission?"   This is important.  You need to be the one to be able to bundle the company message.  The mission should be your banner. 

You need to be able to verbalize these three topics before you get into the weeds.  Too many leaders can rattle off the small details of the organization, but don't have these leadership aspects down.  The vision and values, goals and targets and the mission should all be cast the same way a mission is cast for the crew of an aircraft carrier.  Every member of the crew plays a part in determining where the aircraft carrier is heading.  Engineering, navigation, operations, quartermaster and so on all play their part.  All of these crew members must know the overall mission in order to play their part in determining the direction and making it happen.  If they do not know the vision, values, goals, targets and mission, they are left to driving the ship without a plan and all hell breaks loose.  The entire team works better when the plan comes from the top and the plan is well communicated with commitment and care.

You don't have to have great charisma or an Executive MBA, but you do have to step up and use what you do have.  Use your strengths and gather the strengths of the rest of your management team to build on.  Your team is counting on you to lead and delegate and not relegate.  Your job as a leader is to lead.  You can delegate some, but you cannot relegate at all.

grAVITation TECH - Consultant = Jobless. So, Why Now?

Someone asked me why I started grAVITation TECH now?  Isn’t it risky to start a new business now?  Hell yes, it is!  But, it needed to be done now.  I recently read an advertisement in Popular Science that summed it up for me.  The ad read: “Gravity: The Most Dominant Force in the Universe? - Gravity rules the universe. It governs the rising and falling of tides, and it holds celestial objects in their orbits.  Without it, everything would dissolve into a gas of randomly interacting atoms.”  It was an advertisement for a master’s course in physics, but it spoke to me in volumes about what I wanted to do in AV and IT.  To me AV and IT are at the center of grAVITy (hence the company name grAVITation TECH).  All our marketing, product development, systems, solutions and training will have to center around AV and IT.  There is a need for AV and IT knowledge and consulting now more than ever.  This AV and IT knowledge has to be objective and proficient.  That is why I started grAVITation TECH now.

We have talked about the convergence of AV and IT for well over a decade now.  But, now it is hitting our businesses where it really matters.  It is not just a disruptive technology or a buzzword.  It is a get up “slap your mama” and change everything in your business to the core problem.  We used to see AV and IT as a problem where Pro AV integrators were losing one-off boardrooms and a few hang and bang conference rooms to IT integrators.  That problem was manageable.  Seemingly overnight, the problem grew to soft phones at every computer and skype replacing desktop phones and boardroom conference room systems. 

AV quality became less and less of an issue as bandwidth on demand and smartphone video conferencing and jabber became the collaborative standards.

With IT taking the lead in these areas I decided to take the leap and go into consulting and training to help AV integrators, manufacturers and consulting firms to bridge the gap and help them gain a better understanding of what AV and IT have to offer each other.  I stand by my early assertions that AV still has a lot to offer the IT world.  IT managers do not want to learn acoustics and lighting.  They do not want to have to understand presence and production.  AV’s value in the equation will remain, but it will change.  How the Pro AV Integrator understands and reacts to that change is the key.  My job as a consultant is to guide them in that change.

One piece of advice to the Pro AV Integrator is, and I have said this many years ago and I still see it raise its ugly head, do not have your internal IT person head up your IT market development efforts.  It is just bad all the way around.  I see it time and time again.  Ask yourself this question: would you use your CFO to manage someone else’s finances or your accounts payable to pay someone else’s bills? No. So don’t use your IT guy to define someone else’s IT/AV problems.  Dedicate a sales engineer and market development team for this purpose.  You’ll be glad you did.  It is a forest through the trees thing.

My closing thought on why I started my consulting firm now instead of waiting:  AV and IT are at the center of our technology universe.  Are you prepared to manage the combined forces of AV and IT?  If you hesitated at all in your answer or there is a hint of doubt, you might need my consulting services.  And that is why I started my firm: to serve.

LEADERSHIP 101 THE TEAM

LEADERSHIP 101 – THE TEAM



Max Kopsho – VP/CTO - grAVITation Technologies, LLC

Max@grAVITationTECH.com

This blog is dedicated to the friends I made at Atlanta Soundworks.  ASW has such a talented group of people and an ownership team with such generous hearts and caring attitudes.  I will miss you all dearly.  Although, I was not able to do all I had hoped to do in the short time I was there, I did learn a lot and I was reminded of one of the most important aspects of leadership: teamwork.  I hope my team at ASW remembers me as someone who tried to develop the TEAM.  Without that team, I would not have survived even that long (short as it was).

What does it take to make a team?  TEAM - from a leader’s perspective you can look at the word team to help define what a team needs from you.  

Here is the pneumonic that I am referring to when I say that:

T = Trust

E = Empower

A = Acknowledge

M = Mentor

Trust - Your team needs your trust.  If you spend all of your time double checking everything your team does, they will wonder why it is you hired them in the first place.  Many of the greatest leaders I have ever known have said, “I only hire people smarter than myself.”  Which by the way, if you do the math that makes the CEO the dumbest person in the company, but I digress.  But, joking aside I am stating you should only hire people more trust worthy and smarter than you.  And then TRUST THEM!  You should not be able to do the work of all the people who work under you, nor should you try to.  Sure, you should be able to direct all the work that is done under you, but God forbid you are actually able to do it all.  If you could do everything that is done by the people who work for you, then the people who work for me have a pretty narrow capability set and low bandwidth.  Could you imagine what would happen if the people who worked for Jack Welch could only do what he was capable of and if everything they did had to be checked by him?  GE would be crippled.  Jack Welch was able to trust a team of leaders, who in turn trusted a team of leaders, who trusted… and so on.  I do understand that all of that trust comes from having been proven in the first place, but for God’s sake let your people prove themselves and then get the heck out of their way.  You stifle creativity and limit growth when you do not trust your team.  You ultimately lose people over lack of trust and you will lose them quickly.  Trust is the root of every relationship and no matter how good you are in every other aspect of the relationship; you will lose any relationship over trust issues.  Loss of trust is the one relationship showstopper.  It doesn’t matter whether you are the one who is not trusted or the skeptical one, eventually the relationship will come to an end.

Empower – Empowerment comes hand in hand with trust.  Trusted people are allowed to make decisions and act.  Trust alone, without power, is futile.  Empowerment is the verb of trust.  It is the spirit in the organization that allows people to KNOW that they can act on the trust they have been given.  Trust is lip service without empowerment.  JW Marriot empowered its people with $1000 each to make a customer satisfied.  Without question each employee could make the judgment call and spend that $1000 to make things right for the customer.  Do you allow your employees the decision power to make things right?  Are they trusted AND empowered?

Acknowledge – Awards and Rewards are nice.  Heck they are the new buzz right now.  I want to emphasize that we need to make sure that we recognize, appreciate and show GRATITUDE.  The acknowledgements at the front of a book are full of the gratitude and appreciation expressing about those who got the writer to where he/she is. Don’t just check a box with employee of the month or the required number of thank you messages for the day.  Take the time to acknowledge those who contribute to what gets you to where you are.  A good exercise to do this is to reflect on a week or month and think about what got you where you are.  Run all the ‘what if’ scenarios.  I hate to think about the whole ‘what if Jane got hit by a bus’ scenario  I use ‘what if Jane won the lottery and she wasn’t here this week?’  What impact would that have had?  Look at those ‘lottery’ scenarios for as many people as you can for the week and acknowledge those people who “got you there”.  Acknowledge people publically and privately.  There is something to be said for a private note once in a while.  Yes, public recognition is nice, but a note between you and an employee means more sometimes.  It takes the element of the boss showing off out of the equation.

Mentor – It is one thing to direct people to do what needs to be done. It is a whole other thing to do it with them.  In my last couple weeks at ASW, I had the luxury of going onsite for an install with a team and out on a couple of sales calls.  What a blast!  I forgot how much fun spending time in the field and being with your team is.  Don’t lose this.  Being with the people who are getting it done and mentoring them, learning WITH them, is vital to developing as a team.  That is what mentoring is, learning WITH the team.  Learning is a shared experience and the leader should learn right along with the team.  That shared experience is what allows the mentor to talk about where they gained similar knowledge and other experiences that may apply and draw out experiences that their team has.  The mentor and mentee relationship is a mutually beneficial one and is quite rewarding and fun.  It is the number one reason I love training; because as a trainer, I am always learning from my students.   

My Next Big Thing

Max is now a partner/owner of a new independent consulting firm for AV and IT manufacturers, integration firms and consultant firms. He provides consulting in channel development, sales training, sales process improvement and sales program development. Max also provides consulting for product development and product management. Max's training and certification programs have been globally recognized by industry and he now consults with top companies to provide channel education program development, execution and management. He carries some of the top certifications in networking and audiovisual technologies. Max has worked in Unified Communications for over 14 years in various management and technical roles. He has worked in product management, sales and sales management, channel marketing, field technical services and training. Over the last 26 years Max has acquired an extensive background in supporting A/V systems, computer networks, telecom, and VTC systems. Max is Senior Faculty for InfoComm University and serves as a Subject Matter Expert on an as needed basis. In 2010 Max was awarded InfoComm’s Educator of the Year Award and has helped prepare over 800 students for the CTS exam. Max has been the keynote speaker for several partner events throughout the industry and at the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Conference, where (as Product Manager) he was awarded a Bronze M2M Product of the Year Award for Networked AV for ChristieNET. He also teaches the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA) University and for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual show.

What Makes a Great Company Great?

This is my last week at Kramer Electronics. To say the least, it is filled with mixed emotions. I am very excited about the next phase in my career and the great things that I get to be a part of at Atlanta Soundworks. I am happy that I get to join the ASW team because this is a team known for great service and extremely high quality in all of their projects. At the same time I am sad to leave the people I know and love at Kramer. Parting Kramer will be with such sweet sorrow (I should know…this is the second time I've done it and of course is has to be the last time (there is no going back after this one…)).

I have decided that this week’s blog will be to share why I believe Kramer is such a great company. Who knows, you may find some attributes that you may want to focus on building into your organization. I believe there are 5 key areas that make Kramer the great company it is. These 5 areas are: knowledge, skill, attitude, genuine care factor and a great team spirit. Last week I shared what a great leader Kramer has, now I want to share what a great team he has built. Try to look at this piece as more than a commercial for Kramer and see it as a case study and some insights as to how your company can improve in some areas.

Each of the areas where Kramer proves their leadership and character is recognizable and repeatable in any organization. The first three are easily identifiable and they relate to Steven Covey’s Habits of Highly Effective People. Oddly enough they aren't one of the seven habits. I found these traits at the beginning of the book where Covey defines what a habit is: “The intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And (attitude) desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.” When I was the national trainer for Kramer I started a campaign where I simply stated “ASK Kramer”, because even back then I saw that attitude, skill and knowledge were Kramer’s watchwords. Ever true today as it was then Kramer people, through an almost contagious way, have the attitude, skill and knowledge to be the great company they are.

• Attitude: Kramer’s collective attitude is one of ambition and drive. The drive is to solve their customer’s problems (they continually strive to “do the right thing”) and their ambition is be honest and helpful partners in all they do. 
• Skill: The skills the people at Kramer have are unmatched in the industry; they don’t just sell products, they solve problems and truly partner with their integration partners. Each sales person is an industry veteran, technically savvy and industry certified. Kramer doesn't just put another pretty face in front of you (although everyone there is a good looker), they make sure each person in each meeting adds value to the relationship and that everyone contributes to the company and their partners. 
• Knowledge: Kramer people know what they are doing. The engineering and field support team excels at being incredibly knowledgeable in current and emerging technology and applications. The technical support team has a great blend of awesome customer service and technical guru-ness. 

The last two of the five characteristics have to do with the collective personality of the organization. These characteristics are the family spirit and the genuine desire to do good things and make a difference in their world (as individuals and as a company). These are highlighted when Kramer takes up a charitable cause. For me personally Kramer has helped me to raise thousands of dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. But, it goes beyond charity. Kramer (as a collective) has the desire to do great things in our industry.

Kramer is a family. Each person at Kramer is a valued contributor and is appreciated for their uniqueness and own way about them. Just like any family, we have the crazy uncles (or a few of them – including myself), the strict aunt, the reserved cousins and so on. We have the full spectrum of personalities in Kramer, but the overarching character is of genuine care. Kramer people care for each other, support each other and care for and support their customers. In most businesses people say “it isn't personal, it’s just business”, but at Kramer there is very little separation. Business is personal, and why not? Kramer has many partners (ASW included) where the business is a family one and it is personal.

Lastly, Kramer cares. Kramer is a company based on a spirit to do good things. Dr. Kramer states in the company’s mission statement “…to provide and uncompromising level of service…” I believe this comes through in almost every communication and interaction between Kramer people and their partners (customers). This is something you can’t fake. You either care or you don’t and Kramer does a great job of making everyone in the organization want to care about what they do.

I just hope that I am able to bring what I have learned from this great company on to my next big thing. In closing I want to tell everyone at Kramer: I will miss you all and I will always consider myself “part of the family”. Thank you to each and every person at Kramer for making me a better person.

The Art of Career Stewardship - Knowing the Importance of Balance

Before I begin the message of this blog I will make a brief announcement:  It is with both great excitement and tempered sadness that I announce my upcoming departure from Kramer Electronics (15 November).  I have accepted a position as General Manager at Atlanta Soundworks (an integration firm here in Atlanta).  With Dave Bright's (President of Kramer, USA) support and blessing, I will be taking my career to a new level and growing in new ways.  This blog serves two major purposes.  Purpose #1 is to acknowledge Dave's management style and to share what we can learn from it. Purpose #2 is to announce that I plan to apply all that I have learned from Dave.

And, now, the blog...

There is an interesting cartoon recirculating around social media where two business men are conversing and one says, “what if I train my employees and then they leave?”  The other responds, “what if you don’t train them, and they stay?  This illustrates one of the toughest dilemmas in personnel management.  I think we can agree that employee development is very important and a good management practice.  The dilemma is when you do support your employee and their growth and then they end up growing beyond the needs of your company.  How do you address this?  In the following passage I will give my thoughts on how to support your employees beyond the standard needs of the business.

I have learned that one of the best approaches to employee management is to first recognize that every employee will leave your company; EVERY employee leaves.  The sad truth is that death makes this an undeniably true statement.  That being said, death is the rarest form of employee departure.  Thank God for that.  Knowing that every employee leaves gives you freedom.  Just knowing that keeping an employee forever is a completely unrealistic goal frees you from the burden of trying to keep good employees forever.  Knowing this, you can focus on the more honorable goal of being as good as a leader as you can for as long as you have them.  The result of that is, most often, loyal employees that stand with you as a leader through the test of time.

Another way to look at this is that good managers serve their company by trying to keep their productive employees, but great leaders act as in the best interest of employees and strive to bring out the best in them.  Great leadership through service to employees results in the best employee performance and productive results for the company, win-win.  I have heard this management style referred to as career stewardship.  I love the term.  But, career stewardship is an incredible balancing act. 

As a manager your employees have entrusted you with their career paths.  They have put their faith in you.  They believe that you will look out for their development needs and keep their best interests in mind (as long as these things are aligned with the business goals).  However, your management has entrusted you with their business and they are counting on you to always do what is best for the business. The good news is that these two points are not in conflict.  You can serve your employees and meet the organizational business goals.  In fact, these two points are absolutely dependent on each other. 

The last illustration I will give to this point is where I work.  Kramer Electronics, USA, is led by Dave Bright.  As President of Kramer US he is charge of all aspects of our business.  He looks out for our profit and losses and provides us with strategic direction.  He is an incredible business manager and leader.  But most importantly, he is each and every employee’s biggest advocate and cheerleader.  He has done more to contribute to the development of his employees and helps to develop their career paths more than any other leader I have ever had.  In working for Dave, I have been fortunate enough to work for someone who is truly dedicated to his employees and always does what is best for them.  The business result of this leadership style has been consistent sustained growth for Kramer and very loyal employees.  I believe that if you were to ask anyone who works for or has worked for Dave, they would tell you he is a great example of a true career steward.

I'll end this blog with a special thank you to Dave Bright and to say that Kramer is a great company to work with and for.  Thanks again Dave and thank you to everyone at Kramer.