Barry Saiff discusses effective management practices focusing on caring, access, respect, and vision. He emphasizes the importance of trust, authenticity, and the ability to manage cross-cultural teams in achieving success. The document includes insights on motivation, challenges faced by managers, and resources for continued learning in technical communications.

1. Motivate and Empower Globally-
Competitive Content Teams
Barry Saiff, Saiff Solutions, Inc.
June 7, 2016, 2 pm

2. • 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
About the Speaker: Barry Saiff

3. AGEND
A
 Who are we?
 Management: A Sacred Trust
 Keys to Success: CARVE (Caring, Access, Respect, Vision, Expect Excellence!)
 Our Challenges, Trust, Being, Case Study
 THRIVE (Training, Heard, Respect, Integrity, Vision, Empower)
 Powerful Motivation: SLAP! (Success, Learning, Accurate Feedback, Praise)
 Managing Cross-Cultural Teams
 What is your challenge?

4. QUESTION: Where are you located?
Please tell us your country and city.

5. QUESTION: 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 off-shore writers?
• Hiring? Firing?
• Working for a good manager?
• Working for a not-so-good manager?
• What else?

6. 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

7. • 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:

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

10. 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.

11. • 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

12. Caring
• 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.
• Rather than offering excuses for inaction, a good manager
strives for continuous improvement, rational
administration, fairness, and productivity gains.
Caring

13. Caring
Have you ever thought
about management in
terms of caring?
Yes?
No?
Caring

14. AccessAccess
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?

15. It is unacceptable to accuse
someone in front of others. It is
counterproductive to 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.
RespectBeing Respectful

16. 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.
RespectBeing Respectful

17. 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
RespectBeing Respectful of yourself

18. 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?
Yes?
No?
Vision

19. 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!

20. QUESTION: What, in your experience, are
the most difficult management issues?
We’ll address a few issues now, and others later.

21. 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

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

23. 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.
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

24. An inauthentic manager is an ineffective manager.
To increase authenticity, clarify your inauthenticities.
Everyone has inuathenticities.
Ask for help:
• What don’t you believe? How would you not trust me?
Ask yourself: What do I really care about? What don’t I?
Get training: Never stop learning about yourself.
Highly recommended: http://www.landmarkworldwide.com
Being Authentic

25. CaseStudy: Surprise!
Background: Tech Docs is working with a new Engineering group, but is not
aware that this team transitioned from waterfall to agile.
Issue: Midway through the project, the Engineering Team Lead is demanding
the doc, 4 weeks early. They are including the doc in each sprint, so portions
of the doc must be completed early. The Engineering Manager forgot about
this when he approved the doc schedule.
What do you, as Documentation
Manager, do?
Let’s discuss.

27. 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.

28. Expect Excellence!
I – Integrity:
Empower Excellence: THRIVE
• 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

30. Motivation: A, M, P, T, AF
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)

31. 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 each have
at least 9 years of technical writing/editing experience.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. Managing Cross Cultural 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.
Managing Cross Cultural Teams

35. QUESTION:What management challenge
a are you facing now?
I could benefit from a conversation about…?
Please complete the sentence above on the last page of your
handout, and add your name and phone number(s). Then
tear off the last page and hand it to Darryl or Barry.

36. BONUS: Resources
• BALANCE Infographics: 7 Elements of Respect
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Technical Writers
• Global Content Creation – Making it Work
• A Motivating SLAP
• 2016 New Years Free Gifts
• What do good technical writers do? Why do we need them?
• You can find all of the above at:
http://saiffsolutions.com/home/category/blog
• Great 11-minute video on motivation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

37. Email: barrysaiff@saiffsolutions.com
Skype: SaiffSolutions
Contact: +1 415 350 2959
+63 917 872 0929
Web: www.saiffsolutions.com
Join us at:
UA Europe, Budapest, June 9-10: http://www.uaconference.eu/
LavaCon Las Vegas, October 25-28: http://lavacon.org/2016/vegas/
More webinars, more conferences, our blog!
ALL QUESTIONS ARE WELCOME!

38. 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. Your stress level impacts them.
Successful managers rely on the 4 Cs:
•Curiosity, Caring, Competence, and Creativity