On Management

Barry C.
About the Speaker: Barry Saiff
• Technical communications leader
• 32 years of technical documentation
experience
• Led writing teams at 6 US companies
• Founded Saiff Solutions, Inc. in 2011
• Provides content development to
Fortune 500 companies in Japan & US
• Loves acronyms
 AGEND
A
 Who are we?

 Management: A Sacred Trust

 Keys to Success: CARVE (Caring, Access, Respect, Vision, Expect Excellence!)

 The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Technical Writers
 THRIVE (Training, Heard, Respect, Vision, Empower)
 Integrity
 Powerful Motivation: SLAP! (Success, Learning, Accurate Feedback, Praise)
 Managing Cross-Cultural Teams

 What is your challenge?

 Questions?
 QUESTION: Where are you located?

Please type your country and city in the chat window.

 QUESTION: What are Your Interest/Experience
in Managing Technical Writers?
Have you experienced:
• Managing a team of writers?
• Leading a team, without management authority?
• Managing outsourced or off-shore writers?
• Hiring? Firing?
• Working for a good manager?
• Working for a not-so-good manager?
• What else?
Management is a sacred trust. As a
manager, at any level, you have the power
to:
• destroy careers
• destroy jobs
• destroy morale
• destroy the enterprise
Management is a sacred trust. As a
manager, at any level, you have the power
to:
• build careers
• achieve miracles
• treat people fairly
• develop lifelong
relationships of trust
Management is a sacred trust. As a
manager, at any level, you have the power
to:
• turn lives around
• empower people to be more
effective and more productive
• enable people to learn things
that make them more
successful
• turn the enterprise around
 Caring
The fundamental way of being of a manager is caring.
• A manager cares about the results.
• A manager cares about the process.
• A manager cares about the people.
• A manager cares about the enterprise.
Caring
Picture a mother in an inner
city. The city is very loud. To
be able to sleep, she must
ignore the sounds. Yet, when
her baby cries, she wakes up.
That is the level of caring that
a manager is.
 Caring
• A manager is trusted with power that
they must always use to benefit the
enterprise and support the staff.
• A manager faces many opportunities
to abuse that power, and cause harm
to the enterprise and the staff.
• A manager must, at times, be selfless,
and act against their own (narrowly
conceived) self-interest.
 Caring
• A good manager is a creator of healthy administration,
and an enemy of bureaucratic corruption, inertia, and
injustice.
• The mission, the customers, the enterprise, the people,
and the results are always more important than the rules.
• Rather than offering excuses for ineffective actions or
policies, a good manager strives for continuous
improvement, rational administration, fairness, and
productivity gains.
 Caring
Have you ever thought
about management in
terms of caring?

Please click Yes if this is not a new

idea to you.
 Access
Your people need regular
access to you, and you
need access to your
management.
Have you ever had difficulties or stress at work
because your manager had no time for you?
Please click Yes or No.
 Being Respectful
Respect
It is unacceptable to accuse or
blame someone in front of others.
It is counterproductive to accuse or
blame someone in private.
Even if you don't think you are
accusing or blaming, if the other
person thinks you are, you are
responsible for their perception.
This is particularly important in
Asian cultures.
Being Respectful
Respect
It is unacceptable to raise your voice in anger, use
profanity, or act in a less than civil or business-like
manner.
A manager knows how to manage their emotions,
without dumping them on people in the workplace.
A manager understands the difference between
passion and emotion, and is not controlled by
emotions.
A manager is responsible for the impact of his or
her actions.
A manager does not react. A manager creates.
 Being Respectful
Respectof yourself
Expand the realm of what you
consider yourself responsible for.
Do not accept being treated with less
than respect.
Give yourself a break.
You will make mistakes, in fact, you
must make some mistakes in order to
learn how to improve.
 Vision
Without vision, management is damaging.
Be inspired, and you will inspire others.
Keep the mission, vision, and values of the
organization alive, in everyone.
Make sure people understand how their
work forwards the whole.
Are you clear about the mission or the
vision of your organization?
Please click Yes or No.
 Expect Excellence!
Dr. Wayne Dyer was well
known for the idea, based
on extensive research, that
we create what we expect.
Be very aware of your
expectations.
Choose them wisely.
QUESTION: What, in your experience, are
the most difficult management issues?
Please speak up, or type in the chat window.
We’ll address a few issues now, and others later.
 7 Habits of Highly Effective
Technical Writers Vision
1. DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY 2. LEARN BEFORE ASKING
a (learn) a (respect, impress)
Great technical writers thrive on Learn as much as you can from
criticism. They understand that it available resources before asking
enables them to improve, and to questions. In this way, you can
improve the accuracy and readability of respect others’ time and impress your
their content. So, don’t take criticism colleagues with your ability to ask
personally. Use it to your advantage. intelligent questions.

3. ASK 4. REWRITE
a (often) a (always)
Technical writing requires good Pick 3 of your favorite writers. If you
people skills. were able to see their first drafts,
Don’t attempt it alone. you’d probably think, “I can do much
Ask questions. Ask for help. better.” The best writers in the world
are the best re-writers. Always
rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite some
more.
 7 Habits of Highly Effective
Vision
Technical Writers
5. ACQUIRE FEEDBACK 6. UNDERSTAND
a (test, reviews) a (before publishing)
Technical writing is almost never When you start, you may not fully
100% on the first draft. Without understand your subject matter.
adequate testing and review, That’s fine. By the time you publish,
accuracy is often unattainable. make sure you do understand. If you
Make sure you get the feedback don’t understand what you write,
you need to excel. your readers are not likely to
understand it, either.
7. CONTRIBUTE If you write something, you need to
Notice things. Does the understand what you wrote. Even if it
prototype work as expected? is just a draft to show your editor, you
Are the user interface labels need to either a) fully understand
capitalized consistently? what you wrote, or b) have a list of
Ask questions. Make suggestions. questions. Do not write a sentence
Be a part of the product team. that you yourself do not understand.
Expect Excellence!
Empower Excellence: THRIVE
A manager operates at a high level of INTEGRITY. This
requires a deep respect for the power of your own
words, actions, and ways of being. This includes:
• Being careful not to promise too much, or raise
expectations too high. However, not too low either –
expect great things of yourself!
• Being responsible for your impact on the self-image
and performance of others.
• Keeping your promises. When you cannot, pro-
actively take responsibility for mitigating the impacts
on others.
• Modelling the behaviors, attitudes, and approaches
you want to develop in the staff.
Expect Excellence!
Empower Excellence: THRIVE
I – Integrity:
• Always examining how you might be the source of
the problem
• Learning from every mistake or failure, and from
every success
• Not cutting corners with integrity – do not deceive,
break the law, or let yourself off the hook; do not
share information prematurely or inappropriately
• Working at least as hard, and smart, as your staff.
• Holding yourself accountable for the performance
and results of your team
 Managing Cross Cultural Teams
Three Key Success Factors:
1. Mix cultures and locations.
Having a mix of cultures in one location makes a huge difference.
2. Ensure editing, quality control, and inclusion.
Make sure writers in each location/of each culture have the advantages
they need to succeed.
One of the key success factors for Saiff Solutions, Inc. is that our
Filipino writers in the Philippines work with American, Canadian,
and Filipino editors and managers in the Philippines, as well as
American and Indian editors who are remote. Our editors have at
least 9 years of technical writing/editing experience each.
 Managing Cross Cultural Teams
3. Embrace differences by increasing your awareness!
Understanding cultural differences – between countries, professions,
departments, companies – is crucial to your success. Consider:
• How do these people learn best?
• How do they typically handle conflict?
• What does “Yes” mean to them?
Learn how to listen newly, to hear what you are missing, and to speak
newly, to add what you assume and others do not.
You’ll need to continually expand your awareness to new levels.
You cannot succeed in this without getting to know people well.
 Managing Cross Cultural Teams
• Management entails awesome responsibility and awesome
opportunity. Both are magnified by a mixture of cultures.
• For example, many Asians are socialized to defer to authority figures,
and foreigners, even those not in positions of authority. They may be
unwilling to say “no” or disagree with you, to ask questions or ask for
help, especially if you (even unknowingly) raise your voice or exhibit
frustration or anger.
• They may hide from you the impact of how you are being and what
you are doing. This can lead to very damaging situations, that you
only become aware of when it is too late.
 Managing
Managing Cross
Cross Cultural
Cultural Teams
Teams

To be successful with people in other cultures, you need to be sensitive. You

need to be willing to change. You need to give up the idea that your culture is
better. All cultures have strengths and weaknesses. Learn the strengths and
weaknesses of your culture and other cultures.
 QUESTION: What management challenge
a are you facing now?

I could benefit from a conversation about…?

Please complete the sentence above in the chat window.

We’ll address one or two now.
If you type your answer in the chat window, I promise to
contact you for a private conversation.
 BONUS: Resources
• BALANCE infographic (Respect) – We will send it, with the
presentation, to all webinar registrants.
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Technical Writers
• Global Content Creation – Making it Work
• A Motivating SLAP
• The 21 Dimensions of Respect for Foreigners
• 2016 New Years Free Gifts
• What do good technical writers do? Why do we need them?
 ALL QUESTIONS ARE WELCOME!
Email: barrysaiff@saiffsolutions.com
Skype: SaiffSolutions
Contact: +1 415 350 2959
+63 917 872 0929
Web: www.saiffsolutions.com
Join us at:
LavaCon Dublin, June 5-7: http://lavacon.org/2016/dublin/
UA Europe, Budapest, June 9-10: http://www.uaconference.eu/
LavaCon Las Vegas, October 26-29: http://lavacon.org/2016/vegas/
More webinars, more conferences, our blog!
 BONUS: Creativity in the Face of
Stress
A good manager creates and protects a healthy culture.
Culture lives in the details. In every moment, every
action and interaction.
Think about how you deal with stress. You are a role
model for your team.
Successful managers rely on the 3 Cs:
Caring, Competence, and Creativity