n this session you will learn: • How can you create outsourcing success? • How can technical communicators influence outsourcing decisions? • What are the potential pitfalls to watch out for? • What are the potential benefits to maximize? • Is outsourcing right for your organization? Is now the time?

1. Managing Content Development Teams:
Inner Mastery for Outer Success

2. ➢ About Your Presenter
➢ Getting to Know You
➢ Tailoring Your Workshop
➢ Three Contexts for Extraordinary Achievement
➢ Manager’s Toolkit: You’ve Got to Have CHARM
➢ Management: A Sacred Trust (The Soft Skills)-
CARVE! THRIVE!
➢ Keys to Success: Motivation (SLAP!), Feedback
AGENDA
#LavaCon #SaiffSolutions #techcomm

3. ➢ Awareness, Bias, Culture: You, Your
Organization, The World
➢ Improving Processes and Tools,
Intrapreneurship
➢ Staffing: Changes, Additions
➢ Offshore Outsourcing
➢ Bonus content
AGENDA
#LavaCon #SaiffSolutions #techcomm

4. • Technical communications leader
• 33 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
About the Speaker: Barry Saiff

5. Let’s Get to Know Each Other
Please tell us:
• Your country, city?
• Your role?
• Have you attended
before?
• Why you are here?
#LavaCon #SaiffSolutions #techcomm

6. What are Your Interests/Experiences in
Managing Technical Writers?
Have you experienced:
• Managing a team of writers?
• Leading a team, without management authority?
• Managing outsourced or offshore writers?
• Hiring? Firing?
• Working for a good manager?
• Working for a not-so-good manager?
• What else?

7. What Should We Focus on?
Today?
Some of you received these questions via email:
1. What do you most want to get out of this workshop?
3. Where does your content team fit in your corporate structure?
4. What is your current/past management experience?
5. Which staff changes are you least experienced in:
hiring, firing, transfers, outsourcing, other?
6. What types of training does your team participate in?
7. Is your team geographically, culturally, or linguistically diverse?
8. What is your biggest challenge - Process? Team Issues? Staffing? Other?

8. Enable excellence for:
• Your staff (local, in-sourced)
• Your expanded team (remote, outsourced)
• Your organization
How do we achieve extraordinary
results consistently across all of these
dimensions?
Extraordinary Achievement

9. When facing any difficult
situation, start with
Curiosity and Humility, proceed
with Awareness, Respect, and
Mastery
Manager’s Toolkit: CHARM

10. • destroy careers
• destroy jobs
• destroy morale, and
• destroy the enterprise.
Management is a sacred trust. As a manager,
at any level, you have the power to:

11. • build careers
• achieve miracles
• treat people fairly, and
• develop lifelong
relationships of trust.
Management is a sacred trust. As a manager,
at any level, you have the power to:

12. • turn lives around
• empower people to be more
effective and productive
• enable people to learn things that
make them more successful, and
• turn the enterprise around.
Management is a sacred trust. As a manager,
at any level, you have the power to:

14. The fundamental way of being of a manager is caring.
•A manager cares about the enterprise.
•A manager cares about the results.
•A manager cares about the people.
•A manager cares about the process.
Caring

15. •A manager is trusted with power, and
faces opportunities to abuse that
power.
•A manager must, at times, be selfless,
and act against their own (narrowly
conceived) self-interest.
Caring: Responsibility

16. • A good manager is a creator of healthy administration, and
an enemy of bureaucratic corruption and inertia.
• The mission, the customers, the enterprise, the people,
and the results are more important than the rules.
• A good manager strives for continuous improvement,
rational administration, fairness, and productivity gains.
Caring: Bureaucracy

17. Have you ever thought
about management in
terms of caring?
Yes? No?
Caring: A New Idea?

18. 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?
Yes? No?
Access

19. Don’t accuse. Remember CHARM.
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

20. A manager knows how to manage
their emotions, without dumping
them on people in the workplace.
Understand the difference between
passion and emotion. Be responsible
for the impact of your actions.
A manager does not react. A manager
creates.
Being Respectful

21. Expand the realm of what you consider
yourself responsible for.
Do not accept being treated with less than
full respect.
Give yourself a break.
You will make mistakes, in fact, you must
make some mistakes in order to learn how
to improve.
BALANCE Infographics: 7 Elements of Respect
Being Respectful of yourself

22. 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? Yes? No?
Vision

23. Dr. Wayne Dyer was well known
for the idea, based on extensive
research, that we create what we
expect.
Be aware of your expectations.
Choose them wisely.
Expect Excellence!

24. Caring – Trust = Micromanagement
Trust is the currency of business success.
Without trust, nothing is possible.
You must calibrate trust for each person/situation.
What do you trust me for? Do you trust me to do my job well?
Would you trust me to protect your daughter from harm? These
are very different questions.
TRUST

25. Team (We are all on the same one.)
Relationships based upon
Understanding,
Sensitivity, and
Tolerance
TRUST
Calibrate your level of trust in each
person wisely. Believe in people.

26. Question for managers: Who am I being?
Get clear on who you are, as a manager
and a leader. For example, here is my
statement:
I am an authentic, caring, challenging,
dedicated mentor.
Being

27. What is yours? (Feel free to steal from
mine.)
To get clear on your statement:
• Notice, ask for feedback
• Envision (Whom do you aspire to be
like?)
Being

28. An inauthentic manager is an ineffective manager.
To increase authenticity, clarify your inauthenticities.
Everyone has inauthenticities.
Ask for help:
• What don’t you believe? How would you not trust me?
Being Authentic

29. Ask yourself: What do I really care about? What don’t I?
Separate the facts from your story.
Get training: Never stop learning about yourself.
Highly recommended: http://www.landmarkworldwide.com
Being Authentic

31. ● Examine: How might I be the source of the
problem?
● Learn from failures and successes.
● Do not cut corners (deceive, break the law,
share information prematurely or
inappropriately).
Empower Excellence: INTEGRITY

32. ● Work at least as hard, and smart, as your
staff.
● Hold yourself accountable for the results of
your team, and for your impact on their
self-image & performance.
● Model behaviors and attitudes you want to
develop.
Empower Excellence: INTEGRITY

33. Why are promises important?
● Descriptive language vs
Creative language
● Personal power: What is it?
What is its source?
INTEGRITY: The Power of Your Word

34. ● Beyond keeping promises - Honoring
your word:
○ When you cannot, pro-actively
take responsibility for mitigating
the impacts on others.
○ Calibrate your promises: Not too
much, not too little either – expect
great things! Stretch yourself!
INTEGRITY: The Power of Your Word

35. Begin with:
Curiosity and
Humility, proceed with
Awareness,
Respect, and
Mastery
CHARM Review

36. CHARM Exercise!

38. Three Key Factors for Motivation:
1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
3. Purpose
Great 11-minute video on motivation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuF
Two Orientations of Motivation:
• Toward (things you want)
• Away from (things you don’t want)
Motivation: A, M, P, T, AF

39. Frequent! Accurate! Clear! Specific!
Do not fail to tell someone that they made a mistake.
Do not fail to praise someone, often.
Do have regular one-on-one meetings with each
person.
Do not fail to provide formal
performance reviews at least annually.
Remember CHARM! CARVE! THRIVE!
Feedback

40. Imagine: Your boss tells you (for the first
time) that you are failing at x, y, and z,
and you are being demoted, or fired.
Would you rather have had a chance to
improve first?
Would you rather have had some
effective training?
Enable Excellence: Training - Why?

41. Are you using the best processes and tools?
Ask yourself three questions:
1. What is your purpose?
2. Who is your customer?
3. Is your customer happy?
(http://www.squawkpoint.com/tutorials/process-improvement/)
Improve processes & tools

42. Changing a process or a tool can be expensive.
Understand upper management’s priorities.
Present a business case:
• Short and long term benefits to customers, company.
• Impact to existing products or processes.
• Cost (time, licenses, training, etc.)
• Return on investment (payback time, cost savings.)
Speak management’s language

43. • http://saiffsolutions.com/home/tech-comm-intrapr
eneurship-5-key-approaches-infographic
• https://www.slideshare.net/SaiffSolutionsInc/conte
nt-leadership-forum-how-to-be-an-effective-tech-c
omm-intrapreneur
• https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/9273/271827
Be an effective intrapreneur

44. • A changing world = Diverse styles/contexts
• Cross-cultural teams: Aware leadership
• Each culture has strengths, and challenges
Awareness, bias, & culture

45. Companies market their products
internationally.
Users are diverse.
Localization of products and
supporting documentation
requires cultural awareness.
The world is changing

46. • between company strategy and their
employees.
• between team members who may be in many
locations.
• between past practices and future possibilities
Managers are at the interface

47. 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 all writers have the advantages they need to succeed.
A key success factor for Saiff Solutions: Our writers in the
Philippines work with American, Canadian, Indian, and
Filipino editors and managers (local and remote).
Our Senior Technical Editors each have at least 10 years of
technical writing/editing experience.
Managing cross-cultural teams

48. 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 to listen newly: hear what you are missing
Learn to speak newly: add what you assume and others do not
Continually expand your awareness to new levels.
You cannot succeed in this without getting to know people well.
Managing cross-cultural teams

49. •Management entails awesome responsibility and awesome
opportunity. Both are magnified by a mixture of cultures.
•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.
•Many Americans, Japanese, and others regularly raise their voices, or
interpret silence as a sign of agreement and support.
Managing cross-cultural teams

50. 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.
Seek out the strengths

51. Vision
Remote team members are not
asking enough questions.
Remote team members are not
included in key meetings,
resources, etc.
Expectations are not clear or
not shared.
Remote hiring or management
issues.
Possible Causes of High Error Level

52. Vision
Why aren’t they asking enough
questions?
How do you* respond to questions
that seem pointless? Stupid?
Are you* open to people who think
differently?
Are all questions welcome?
Really?
---------
*Anyone in authority
Asking Questions
Structure meetings to encourage quieter
people to speak (when feasible):
Break into pairs before discussing in the larger group.
Have each person in the circle make a comment.
(Allow people to pass if they want to.)
Everyone should speak once, before anyone speaks
twice.
Invite quieter people to lead part of the meeting.
Talk about problems openly in the meeting. Invite more
vocal people to speak less.
Between meetings, ask quieter people what would help
them speak, or ask for their ideas on how meeting
should be run.
--Community Tool Box, “Building Relationships with People
from Different Cultures”

53. Vision
Why aren’t they asking enough
questions?
What does respect mean to
you? To them?
Respect
Respect in the Philippines (and some other
Asian cultures):
○ Defer to authority/role, age, whiteness,
experience, wealth.
○ Be quiet. Appear attentive. Agree. Do what you
are told.
○ Do not challenge or question authority. Support
leaders.
Respect in the USA (and many non-Asian
cultures):
○ Tell the truth, respectfully. Do not withhold key
information.
○ Ask questions, appropriately. Contribute. Speak
up.
○ Do what you say you will. Do not lie. Support the
team.

54. Vision
Remote members not included
in team meetings, emails, etc.
Communication
Social factors are the most significant
predictors of virtual team performance and
satisfaction. (Lin et al, 2008)
Predictable and timely responses between
members lead to greater levels of trust in a
virtual team. (Dewar, 2006)
Set times for regular meetings and individual
accessibility by phone or email, but avoid
relying on email as sole means of
communication. (Cascio, 2000)
Rely on a common database to store and share
knowledge. (Hertel et al., 2005; Powell et al., 2004)
https://est05.esalestrack.com/eSalesTrack/Content/Content.
ashx?file=4578f59e-21b3-4a2c-bbfe-63e53af3f5dc.pdf

55. Vision
Management in Asia is frequently “Command
and Control:”
○ Management as supervision
○ Intensely hierarchical
○ “The manager always knows best”
This management style does not encourage:
○ Collaboration
○ Asking questions
○ Prioritizing quality over deference to authority
All over the world, people frequently leave jobs
because of their managers. This may also
explain why they don’t ask questions.
Management Style

56. Vision
Why are local and remote staff
not getting along well?
Conflict / Culture Clash
Some Common US approaches to conflict:
○ Discuss. Argue. Raise voices. Blame. Apologize.
Resolve/Not.
○ Challenge. Brainstorm together. Resolve/Not.
Some Common Filipino approaches to conflict:
○ Avoid. Work around. Await opportunity to resolve.
Some Common Filipino responses to US
approaches:
○ Withdraw. Resent. Sabotage. Leave.
Some Common US responses to Filipino
approaches:
○ Give up on the Asians. Blame. Assume
stupidity/incompetence.

57. In Summary:
Things Are Not Always What They Seem
Mistakes
...could be due to incompetence. But
also think about:
● The clarity of your expectations
● Your communication style
● Your openness to questions
● Differences in display of respect
● All the “authorities” involved and
the above issues for each of them
Turnover
...could be due to typical reasons
(competition, compensation, etc.). But
also carefully consider:
● Your management style
● Conflicts or culture clash

58. • Do your homework: Follow processes, document
• Has the person received specific, actionable feedback? Have
they been given a chance to improve? Have you considered
various viewpoints?
• Is the person a negative influence? A bad cultural fit? Or
someone different who contributes something valuable?
• Not being able to fire people can destroy an organization.
• Firing the wrong people can destroy morale.
• Once you decide, act with authority.
Staff Changes - Firing

59. Transfers into your team:
• Orientation, inclusion
• Team cohesion, team building
• Are they a good fit? What are
their career goals?
Transfers out of your team:
• Understand their goals
• Support their ambitions
• Make it work for your team
Staff Changes - Transfers

60. • Hire for attitude (89%) and skills (11%)
• Know your culture, seek a good fit
• Value and encourage diversity
• More heads are better
• When needed, test
• After hiring: orientation, team-building, inclusion
• Do you have a good onboarding process?
Orientation?
• What if you cannot get hiring authority/budget?
• Can you outsource/offshore while
maintaining/improving quality?
Staff Changes - Hiring

61. Vision
Which of these challenges are
affecting your productivity?
◻ Remote team not asking enough
questions, or not following instructions
◻ Turnover rate high at remote sites
◻ Conflict between remote and local
staff
◻ Deadlines not being met
◻ Other
If Saiff Solutions could assist you
in overcoming your challenges,
would you be interested in a free
consultation?
◻ Yes, please contact me directly.
◻ Not right now, but I would like to
receive additional information about
your services.
◻ No, thank you.
Quick Poll