Kathleen Long
I'm a life-long learner. There is no telling what I will be interested in, so I enjoy taking in all sorts of knowledge. Some of it may be useful in my job, but it will all enrich me intellectually.
Location Montgomery Village, Maryland
Activity
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Measurement, or metrics, are very important, although some things are difficult to measure. And each industry or business has different things that should be measured, so you can't apply a hard-and-fast template to everything. However, it does stand to reason that if you can measure something, you can improve it.
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They should be!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself or off topic, but if you have a company that does civil engineering projects, I don't understand why they don't own their own equipment. One of my recommendations was that they should do a cost-benefit analysis, to see which equipment is used on what percentage of jobs, and whether it would make more financial sense to own a...
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Kathleen Long replied to ERNEST EMOKHOR
Or perhaps there should be more than one approval step in the process before the equipment is ordered.
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Kathleen Long replied to Ruth Willis
Agreed, if you want to have a continual improvement effort, changes should be implemented based on the analysis.
Also I agree that the facilitators are mysteriously absent, so it is hard to tell if what we are typing here is right or wrong. It would be good to know if we are going down the right path!
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One of the questions is out of an 8-hour day, how many minutes is an employee allowed for meal (and other) breaks, and what percent of the 8 hours do you expect them to be available to do their work? In my experience managing a help desk, we allowed the employee a 45-minute lunch, and two 15-minute breaks. This brings their available time for doing work to...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but in the model given, there were only two outcomes - the invoice was either paid, or not paid. However, there is a third scenario that I think was overlooked - that where the invoice might have been correct for the most part, but one part may have been wrong. So what is the outcome for that? It seems like there should be...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I think that a lot of the changes you made would depend on the type of restaurant. If it was a fine dining establishment, for instance, you would probably not want to make it self service, or eliminate cooking.
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Kathleen Long replied to Alison Clark
Alison, the bad customer service you received was inexcusable. I'll bet you will never go back to that cafe again!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I had a rather nerve-wracking experience this past summer in connection with my daughter's wedding. Everything was under control until I was getting dressed for the wedding in my new mother-of-the-bride dress and realized that one side felt very heavy. When I looked down, there was the theft-prevention fob, still attached to my dress. There was nothing for it...
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Kathleen Long replied to stephen furness
Very similar to the case that I just posted; although my case didn't include information about escalating if the Tier 1 analyst isn't able to resolve the issue.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
In the Service Desk (informally known as help desk) environment, the "fault to resolution process is a big one.
Triggers: from the point of view of the customer, something is not working. From the point of view of the Service Desk (SD), we receive a phone call or an email with the customer's description of what is not working for them.
Actors: The end user... -
Kathleen Long made a comment
I can see in the case of a support organization, such as my own, that many times we are dealing with the "fault to resolution" process. (I.e., something is not working for the customer, who contacts the Service Desk by means of phone or email, and we work with them until their issue is resolved.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I found it interesting that the process improvement was not in Ford's core business, but in their purchasing department, on the periphery. As I work for Marriott, in their IT department, I have heard them say many times that IT is not their core business (building and running hotels is!), which is the reason why many IT functions in our company have been...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Greetings from Marriott Corporate Headquarters' IT department, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, about 20 miles outside of Washington, DC. I work in the area of Technical Support, in a role that has oversight of teams to which we have outsourced most of our Service Desk work. I have had 18 years of experience in this area, but am eager to see what this course...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
There is one family member in my mother's family tree that seems to be a dead end. She was from France, and her name is listed in our records as Dubek, although the common French spelling has been Dubec. Sounds to me like this is an idea case for using a wildcard.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I found out something in my maternal grandfather's line. He was descended from a family of Quakers, and of course our branch was from the "black sheep" that was shunned out of the Quaker community. For years he lived close by, but I hadn't known until recently that his second marriage was to a woman of Native American (Cherokee) ancestry, who had taken the...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
This is probably not new information, but many people coming to the US changed their names coming through immigration for various reasons. My husband's name (and mine now), Long, was originally German, and was spelled Lang. But in order to keep the pronunciation the same, they change the spelling to Long.
A friend of mine is descended from Polish Jews that...
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I know that one dead end some people in my family have reached is when they have come to a place where parish records have been destroyed. They have been unable to pick up the threads from there. I don't know if there is any way of reconstructing such records, though, because where else would births/deaths be recorded?
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We are not sure how much Scottish ancestry we may have. We have traced back to northern Ireland, and the family says it has always called itself Scots-Irish, so there must have been some knowledge that they migrated from Scotland. Now, if I can just wade through some info from Ireland first, it may point the way back to Scotland!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Sometimes even the official (i.e., census) documents have discrepancies in DOB or spelling of name. And there are conflicts with how the family remembers such things, even going back just to my grandparents' generation. Heaven alone knows how much more complicated this all gets once one goes further back in time. Also, being in the U.S., we consider the census...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm from The state of Maryland in the US, but originally from Illinois. I'm fortunate that some in my family have already done a lot of genealogical research, but there are still some dead ends. And of course there is also my husband's family to look into. I'm mostly a product of the British Isles, with a couple of random Europeans thrown into the mix.
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Kathleen Long replied to Mark Bicknell
Many people in my department were hired by the contracting company as employees to fulfill management roles similar to what they had been performing before their jobs were outsourced. When you put it in terms of conflict of interest, I can see your point, but they were viewed by the contractor as having essential skill sets for doing the work, so they hired...
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Cool video. Thanks!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
The thought that a 9.2% loss of revenue can occur should indeed cause us to embrace whatever best practices we can, to make sure that we pay attention to these attributes.
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I agree with you, I don't understand how you are functioning without contract managers, unless you expect the SLAs and performance levels to always remain static. But how do you deal with change? Or new requirements?
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Kathleen Long replied to Mark Bicknell
One of the most frightening parts of change is if your job will go away. Depending on various factors (skill set, age, etc.) some of them may not land on their feet. At the time that I was involved in this kind of scenario, I felt that it was ironic that I was working very hard to outsource my own job, and had a hard time overcoming my feelings of bitterness....
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Of all the change management models I have seen, Kotter's is my favorite. Everything that was said in this video resounded with me, since we made a large change (outsourcing) 2+ years ago in my organization. People's jobs in our organization went away, or changed in nature, and some people who had been in our company were actually hired by the outsourced...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I have experienced managers who won't empower me to act, when I see something that would be a win-win for our customers and partner teams. There is a certain fear that some piece of information will be shared that should not be. This is not an efficient way to function, and in addition to being frustrating for me (for example, when I think I have an innovative...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I can see how the current contract I'm involved with is more than a bit hide-bound. It would be nice to have some flexibility built into it, so that it didn't become bound up, as per the section talking about "frozen specifications." As needs change, the contract should also change, with a relatively easy option to re-negotiate parts of it.
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Kathleen Long replied to Graham Smith
I agree - examples of innovation would have been interesting.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Innovation is always a good idea. The problem is having a management that will listen to their associates' innovative ideas. I liked what she said about listening to the client, and trying to sort out what the client wants, as opposed to what they really need. Finally, the use of technology - no example was given, so I'm eager to hear what will be said about...
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I agree, if those at the top don't buy into this vision, the rest of us are pretty powerless to implement it.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I think our lives would be very different indeed. However, as a small cog in the wheel, there are many things that I am not empowered to change. I can, of course, educate myself on what people do, as in Step 1. The rest of it has to be done by executives, and they are outside of my scope of empowerment.
In regard to rewarding those who cooperate and...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm especially looking forward to the ideas about how to move contracts into the virtual world.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I had heard of a win-win, but had never heard it expressed as WIIFWE. I really love the thought of collaboration and treating the customer/supplier relationship as a partnership. It seems like a much more productive way to go about doing business, than in an adversarial manner.
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Can you speak to career prospects for those coming from the direction of private industry? This is speaking as someone who has moved into a position of governance over outsourced parts of the business where I actually used to work. Douglas did mention something about this in the affirmative, in his closing remarks, but I would be interested in recommendations...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Research on the prospective vendor before taking bids on the contract is always a good thing. Have they done much work in the area you are contracting out? What is their corporate culture. The way the organization is structured can also help by building a highly collaborative relationship. Our current contract has each manager on our side (the customer) paired...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
As the customer, if you want your supplier to do things differently, you need to get beyond the "just because," and be able to show the advantages, not only for you (why you are asking them to change), but also how they will benefit.
We need to be able to see the problem from both perspectives, and be able to articulate "what's in it".
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Kathleen Long made a comment
In watching this, I can tell that I fall into the category of person who are looking for win-win solutions, and I also desire to be transparent. Frequently, I'm surprised that others in my organization are playing their cards very close to the vest, and don't feel that we should have as collegial and friendly a relationship with our vendor, who are also our...
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I have a good understanding of the objectives of my organization, and when we outsourced a couple of years ago, I think that we did a good job of capturing them in the contract. I also believe that the supplier/vendor with whom we are working has understood these objectives; and that in addition to trying to make a profit (after all, that is why they are in...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I have reviewed two so far, and they were both very good, although very different. One was more general in tone and content, while the other one really captured specifics, but you could tell that both had understood the essential points.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
In my company, I don't think the problem is so much identifying stakeholders (essentially, since we are support, everyone who works for our company is one); as it is assigning importance to the various groups of stakeholders. We know that when certainly people contact us in regard to a problem they are having with support, we jump quicker and higher than if...
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The contract we are currently involved in (for services) has been carefully written to try and capture volume of work, and also scenarios in which those volumes might change (requiring the supplier to staff up, hence cutting into their profit margin). There are also specific Service Levels that the supplier must achieve in order to not be subject to penalties,...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
We must not confuse power with "abuse of power." The business world is full of people who love to throw their weight around, but there are also people who have power but don't crush others with it. Everyone knows who they are, and respects their power.
I think that if I throw my weight around, I should be prepared for the eventuality that at a certain...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
My first reaction to this was that it was a very, very sad story, and I felt that Apple had been a bully. However, as some have rightly stated, GTAT had the right to walk away from the contract, and I think that they were blinded by the potential wealth they might have accrued. Of course, Apple was shrewdly holding all the strings, and GTAT found out all to...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I found it interesting that there is one company that has an entire group of people going through this course together, and sitting down to discuss it daily. I wish there were others from my own company that were doing that! As it is, I have been sharing various revelations (that is, to me!) with my own manager, and hoping that we have opportunities to discuss...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I was a little disconcerted by the presentation of the concept of customer power. Specifically, "For this to happen a customer cannot afford to behave as if they have power." It seems a bit upside-down to me. After all, if I'm the customer, isn't the vendor working for me? If that is the case, I would expect that it is their business to make me happy with...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
My company has outsourced most of its IT functions recently, and it has become obvious that the expertise (knowledge) has now passed outside of our own company's walls, and is in the hands of our vendor. Although we have a knowledge base that they are responsible for reviewing and updating on a regular basis, getting them to perform this task on a regular...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
SME was used a couple of different times in this week's materials. It may be a common term in the EU, but I wasn't familiar with it, and had to look it up online. (There were many results, but I finally figured it out!)
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I have been involved with a couple of different contracts, and much of what has been presented is familiar, or at least seems logical, if not applicable to my own area of expertise. However, one part that resonated with me was the concept of building trust, and a good working relationship between the customer and the provider. All too often I have observed an...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Interesting and informative week's worth of information. I'm looking forward to seeing that video. Shouldn't it be up, since today is Friday?
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Kathleen Long replied to Steve Hudson
I have also had some experience with the supplier providing the reporting on their own performance. It has always struck me as being somewhat like having the fox watch the henhouse. The reporting is "just okay", as far as it goes, although the data on which it is based is not the best. The data comes from tickets that are logged by call center analysts, and...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I think that when you pay for a service, you just want to get something done, in what is most likely a no-frills way. When you pay for fashion or food, your intention is not merely to cover your body or fill your stomach, but you are also thinking of what is stylish, looks good on you, or what kind of food you want - whether you are looking for a quick lunch,...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
The distinctions are pretty apparent in my field, of IT support (which we have contracted out). Our vendor's cost is comprised of various factors (personnel, equipment, administrative overhead, etc.) + their profit. The value is what our internal customers (who work at Marriott locations) perceive. We oftentimes combine our services (such as the help desk)...
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I agree, it looks like the supplier is the one who needs to beware of potential pitfalls. They may make more sales in the short term, but need a crystal ball for the long term.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
It seems like a gamble, as to whether long-term savings could be effected this way. I'm not sure it would work in my industry (at least in my particular part of it, which is in IT).
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Although the advantages of leases were illustrated in the video, a quick scan of comments shows that it is a good idea to read the fine print carefully, to make sure that there are no hidden costs, or other things that become problematic, such as the inability to return leased items early, or buy at the end of the lease's term. As always, caveat emptor!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Regulations do constrain, but that is a necessary function. If not, then behaviors would run amok, and opportunities to do business would not be available to all qualified vendors. There have been times when the "good old boys" would make business decisions over a round of golf, and contracts would be awarded that way. They have now been constrained to open...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Being an IT organization, there are a lot of rules surrounding information security. We have our own internal security organization, but because of the main business the company for which I work (Marriott) involves receiving credit card payments from customers, we are also under PCI (Payment Card Industry) security regulations. There are external, stringent,...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm not sure that I have anything to add here, as everyone else has already made the points I had thought about. I would like to say that we shouldn't expect to follow different rules (for example, in regard to child labor) just because we have sourced operations to a different country. On the other hand, if the culture of the country itself involves children...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I was amazed at the mention of modern slavery, although we know well enough that it still exists in some part of the world; as well as situations in which people work at very low wages and under inhumane conditions. We must balance this with the advantage of taking some aspects of our business overseas, where wages *are* indeed lower than in our own country,...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I liked the proactive approach to dispute resolution, and also the attitude of collaboration portrayed in the article. Best to nip disputes in the bud, before they escalate to the legal area, or do lasting damage to professional relationships.
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I agree - the subtitles are distracting even when they are concurrent with the video; it was hard to concentrate on what was being said when the subtitles didn't match what was being spoken.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
This video underlines the fact that you can forge the perfect contract, but if the relationships are not there, the situation can quickly devolve into one where parties are living by the letter of the law, instead of the spirit. I'm thinking in particular of one individual who carries around a hard copy of the contract as if it were the Bible, and is reluctant...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
We are in the middle of a 5-year contract at this time, and are still struggling with the "monitoring and improvement" step. Monitoring is somewhat difficult, because the reporting function has passed to the vendor, so we are reliant on the numbers that they pull, and their interpretation of them. Improvement is problematic, because if you tell them they have...
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Kathleen Long replied to Nicola Brown
I agree - then you get into the situation where the fox is watching the henhouse, and you lose perspective on who is working for whom.
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I agree, honesty and integrity only go so far in a position of leadership, if one is not willing to come down from their ivory tower and mix with one's associates and vendors. Also, trusting those under you, and empowering them to do their jobs goes a long way, along with transparency.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Having worked for two years now in an environment where my previous department was outsourced, I can say that the two points that have impacted us the most are #6 (lack of flexibility) and #10 (poor post-award processes and governance). When trying to translate the previous organization into an outsourced organization, we went through a tremendous "brain...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I like what he said: "We don't give up what we do. We may contract what we do, but we never give up. It's still our responsibility." My previous area was in technical customer support, and I'm acutely aware of what good customer service looks like in that space. My erstwhile customer is still my customer, although they are now interfacing with a vendor. But I...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I think there are more commonalities than not. However, being in an international organization, and using vendors that are housed around the globe, I have found that culturally the individuals at those locations vary greatly, and the tactics that are used to communicate, and otherwise interface with them, need to change depending on their local culture. The...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm an Infrastructure Analyst, working for Marriott International at its Headquarters location. We have recently outsourced most of our IT function to various vendors, and my department has an oversight function.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I hate being in ATN meetings, as those who are loud and pushy often seem to have the floor, and advance their agendas. It just seems so rude. I think it is the responsibility of the meeting organizer to make sure that everyone has a chance to have their say. The quiet person in the corner may be content to merely sit there and take it all in. Then on the other...
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I love that idea - although I have never seen such a directive in my organization. I know some people who have so many meetings scheduled in a given day, that they find it hard to accomplish their jobs, and oftentimes have to take work home and do it on "their own time" during evenings and weekends.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I agree that an agenda is a good idea. Without one (whether publicized in advance or not), it signals that the objective may not be clear in the mind of the person planning the meeting. Since I am a somewhat quiet person, I also appreciate some mechanism for people to be able to speak up and let their voices be heard. Few things annoy me more than a meeting...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
My boss uses a little bit of light-hearted banter, especially in cases where stress needs to be mitigated. Although we all take our jobs seriously, he doesn't want us to kill ourselves trying to get things done, and this comes through plainly, and in a non-threatening way. It is also his way of letting us know that he has noticed our efforts.
I use the same...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I know that humor is necessary in the workplace, or in any other life situation where human relationships need to be eased a little. However (as I'm sure others here have already mentioned), we should make sure that the humor is appropriate, and also that we don't give the impression that we take our work lightly.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I do believe that Sarah's criticism of her peer from the other department was a double-edged sword. But the reason that she mentioned it to Michelle was so that her employee would know that Sarah wasn't the one throwing the task at her at the last minute. But I do agree, you can't continually place the blame on a colleague without it creating a bad...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
When there is a lack of communication between departments (because of a siloed organization, or merely because some individual is a bad communicator!), it is all the more important that these interactions between individuals on one's team are comfortable, and that decisive action can be taken. This scenario was an example of a good communication, where...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
The first scenario would have left me, as Michelle, unconvinced that my time meeting with Sarah was important to her, as she was not focused on what she was communicating to me. This was just rude, in my opinion.
The second scenario was much better. There was eye contact, and a small smile, and no distraction from the laptop. This says to me that for the...
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Kathleen Long replied to Ayda Halime
I think in a lot of situations, we see that face-to-face communication is different than electronic communications. One example (not related to bosses) is social media. Many people are confrontational, abrupt, and rude, when not face-to-face with others. The same goes for bosses, although we should hope that they are not, in fact, rude!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
As someone who is a citizen of the United States, I am painfully aware of my lack of knowledge in regard to the history of other parts of the world. As many of my forbears came from the British Isles, I am trying to expose myself in particular to the history and civilization related to my heritage. I have made two trips (only two, alas!) to the British Isles...
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It is also good to remember that we cannot change other people (least of all our bosses!), but we can change ourselves. Although I enjoy working for bosses that are not as authoritarian, and enjoy getting feedback from their direct reports, if I end up working for another boss who uses top-down management techniques, I will know to adjust my expectations...
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Kathleen Long replied to Lourdes Punsalan
Bearing in mind that today is only Wednesday, maybe people are pacing themselves, and we will see more responses here. I personally like to be a little bit ahead of the curve on these MOOCs, as otherwise the volume of responses is overwhelming.
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Kathleen Long replied to rozanne white
I'm finding the same thing, Rozanne!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm glad to see that this course is making communication much more of a two-way street. It's not only helping me understand my manager's communication style, but also giving me some good ideas for how to moderate my own.
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Kathleen Long replied to Craig Hills
I think you are right on the money, Craig. I have managed a few different teams, and although I prefer using a more collaborative management style, one team in particular was very difficult to manage, and I had to be much more direct, and could not allow as much autonomy for the individuals in the team.
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Kathleen Long replied to Caitriona Horan
Not really "acting." The collaborative management style is a valid style as taught in business school, as opposed to the rather old-fashioned (and more and more ineffective) top-down style, which is heavily authoritative, and doesn't allow room for the ideas of one's direct reports.
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Kathleen Long replied to Lourdes Punsalan
Coming from "the other side of the pond," I can assure you that I have also seen my share of Scenario #1!
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I'm not sure which one is authentic. I hope that it's the second one, because I really didn't like the boss in the first one!
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Kathleen Long replied to Jean Fitzpatrick
I think that a lot depends on what the motivators are for the subordinate. Some people are motivated by their boss's holding their feet to the fire, and being somewhat unpleasant. Others (myself included) find this kind of behavior off-putting, if not downright threatening, and are more responsive to a less abrupt style of communication.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
Steve was all left-side, and inflexible. He had no "warm, fuzzy" characteristics at all. The thought crossed my mind that if he needs people's good will in order to do his job well, he is going down the wrong trail.
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Kathleen Long replied to Leigh Horton
There is deceit; and then there are those people (like myself) whose personalities have kept them from expressing themselves confidently. I felt like the video was speaking directly to me, and have taken the advice to heart.
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Kathleen Long made a comment
That TED talk by Amy Cuddy was inspirational. I have printed out a couple of her comments, and now have them pinned to the wall of my cube, so that I can take them to heart.
And in regard to comments about "fake it till you make it," I don't think the naysayers here have captured the context. Some of us, who are not apt to give ourselves the credit we...
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Kathleen Long replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Regarding Elaine's comment about flitting between both sides, I think that is a good observation. I found that my previous boss was left-side when dealing with her direct reports, and more right-side when speaking to someone at her own level, or about in the organizational hierarchy.
I'm using her as an example, as I haven't had the occasion to observe my...
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Kathleen Long made a comment
I have seen a difference between right- and left-sided traits in myself, depending on whether I am speaking or writing. I tend to favor collaborative environments, so in speech am very right-sided. In emails, I catch myself being right-sided, and then go back and edit to be left-sided.
One conundrum I have noticed is that my current boss and the one before...
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Kathleen Long replied to Lisa Corney
Jean, you are right. The walls have ears.
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Kathleen Long replied to Sharon Kauffman
Sharon, my experience exactly. And the message it sends is "put up or shut up."
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Kathleen Long replied to Annette Buckley
I find your experience interesting, because it is the opposite of what I encountered, after having gotten an advanced business degree. I had hoped that it would help me advance in my career, but I found out that the old adage is true in our company: It's not what you know, it's who you know.
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Kathleen Long replied to Lorraine Hannon
I'm curious what happens when you speak up about an inefficient process? Occasionally, I bring something up along these lines, only to have it swept under the carpet by someone, who tells me that I'm treading in the area of someone else's responsibilities.
