Archive for December, 2009
Why Efforts To Improve Business Results Often Fail
Efforts to improve business results often fail. Why is that? In my twenty plus years working with clients, it comes down to two factors:
- Lack of execution - Good or even great plans are made to improve a process, reduce costs, hire a star player, identify a critical gap, etc. But, when it comes to implementation, efforts fall short. Other things take priority, no one is sure what exactly to do, no one is driving the process, “if we wait long enough this stupid idea, like all the others, will fade away,” etc.
Build into your plan for improvement a plan for what might be a challenging implementation and you’ll find your success rate increases dramatically.
- Lack of accountability - If you make a plan, for instance, to improve sales, but don’t hold people accountable for the activities needed to drive more sales, sales won’t improve. This sounds so basic, but it is a significant issue in many companies. If you announce that more sales calls are required to new prospects, but don’t measure those sales calls and don’t provide any consequences for not performing as expected, then results won’t improve. The same applies to using a new process or reducing costs or staying on budget.
Recently I spoke to a former IBM sales representative and asked him what would happen if he routinely didn’t turn in his sales report on Sunday nights. He said, “Without a legitimate reason, I wouldn’t have a job to go to on Monday morning.”
Build expectations, accountability and consequences into your processes and you’ll see business results improve significantly.
For free access to all of our blog resources on improving business performance, click here. To sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here. To see how we have delivered results for companies like yours, click here. For a no-cost, no obligation consultation to discuss your organizational challenges with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, click here.
To your success!
THE Six Essential Traits of Effective Leadership
In my experience, these six traits are the most essential skills for effective leadership. You may disagree. If you do, please provide your input in the comments section.
- Effective Influence….influencing the behavior of others toward the achievement of organizational goals in such a way that they continue to be influenced even when you’re not around
- Developer….building peak performers first by being clear about what you’re looking for, second by hiring only the people who are capable of doing what you’re looking for and finally by providing what they cannot yet provide for themselves along the path from beginner to peak performer
- Courage…addressing, with dignity and respect, the tough issues that might upset people knowing that moving the organization forward is more important than not upsetting the status quo
- Strategy……not about tactical or incremental improvements….rather it’s about identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities that position you to dominate specific market segments
- Vision Casting….create one crystal clear picture of the future that employees actually invest themselves in
- Management Innovation…..it’s not about efficiency, productivity, more, better or faster….it’s about organizing in non-traditional ways that engage employees while focusing them on achievement of organizational goals
When leaders fail to lead effectively, one or more of these factors are missing. As you think about the nagging challenges you face, do they generally fall into the same one or two categories above. If so, you may have discovered your weakest leadership trait.
In that case, find a way to address it by developing the skills necessary or including another leader whose strengths include the skill you lack. If necessary, get outside help to address the issue. It’s still less expensive than letting the problem continue.
For free access to all of our blog resources on improving business performance, click here. To sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here. To see how we have delivered results for companies like yours, click here. For a no-cost, no obligation consultation to discuss your organizational challenges with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, click here.
To your success!
Death By A Thousand Meetings
Improving business results is ocassionally about breakthrough new ideas and inventions, but often improving business results is about doing simple things more effectively. Patrick Lencioni, author of “Death By Meeting” suggests a simple way to dramatically improve the effectiveness of every meeting in your organization. Lencioni suggests 4 meeting types for maximum effectiveness:
- Daily Check-In Meeting
- 5 minutes in length
- Each person shares daily schedules and activities
- Keys to success:
- Don’t sit down
- Keep it administrative
- Don’t cancel even when some are missing
- Weekly Tactical Meeting
- 45 - 90 minutes in length
- Review weekly activities and metrics; then resolve tactical obstacles and issues
- Keys to success:
- Don’t set the agenda until after reviewing metrics
- Postpone strategic discussions
- Monthly Strategic Meeting
- 2 - 4 hours in length
- Discuss, analyze, brainstorm and make decisions about critical issues affecting long term success
- Keys to success:
- Limit meeting to 1 or 2 topics
- Assign people to research topics ahead of time and be prepared with recommendations
- Engage in productive conflict
- Quarterly Off-Site Meeting
- 1 - 2 days in length
- Review strategy progress, industry trends, competitive landscape, key personnel, team development
- Keys to success:
- Get out of the office
- Don’t overstructure the schedule
Use these simple meeting strategies to improve the quality of your meetings. If your meetings are more effective, maybe you can have fewer meetings and get more done.
To your success!
For free access to all of our blog resources, click here. To sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here. To see how we have delivered results for companies like yours, click here. For a no-cost, no obligation consultation to discuss your organizational challenges with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, click here.
Is Your Company In First Place?
Is your company the leader in your industry? I don’t mean the largest company in your industry. I mean, is your company the leader in your industry on the measure that really counts - percent of profit?
A higher percent of profit indicates some combination of lower costs, higher efficiency, leadership effectiveness, lower employee turnover, higher employee morale, more strategic focus, higher levels of innovation and/or a variety of other factors.
Every industry that I’ve ever analyzed had readily available industry reports describing in detail the performance of various industry segments. Find the data for your industry and focus on the percent of profit that companies in your industry have achieved? How do you stack up?
If you’re not the industry leader in terms of percent of profit, find out how others are achieving a higher profit percentage than you are? The real challenge is this. If they can do it, why can’t you do it?
Make a plan to improve your percent of profit and 2010 will be better year.
To your success!
For free access to all of our blog resources, click here. To sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here. For a no-cost, no-obligation consultation to dscuss your organizational challenges with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, click here.
Don’t Confuse Motion With Progress
“David, how’s it going?”, the seasoned leader asked his newest manager.
“Wow, I’m swamped, but lovin’ it”, said David.
“Tell me about what you’re working on,” the seasoned leader asked with a hint of where the conversation was going. David reviewed his long list of activities for his boss.
“Can I make a suggestion David?”, asked the boss.
“Of course,” said David.
“Don’t confuse motion with progress,” the seasoned leader offered, recalling how he learned the same lesson some thirty years ago. David looked at his list.
“In light of that advice David, which items on your list are most important?”, asked the boss.
“These four items will help us make the most progress,” David offered excitedly knowing that he was learning an important lesson.
“Great, work on those,” David’s boss said with a smile as he looked at his watch and noticed that only six minutes had gone by.
Effective and results focused leadership in only six minutes? Absolutely. When we get busy, we all can get trapped by the to-do’s that pile up. Make your to-do list, review it for which items will help you make the most progress and then focus on those things.
For free access to all of our blog resources, click here. To sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here, For a no-cost and no-obligation consultation to discuss your organizational challenges with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, click here.
To your success!
Average Effort Will Never Yield Great Results
Would you pay for the premium cable package each month and settle for access only to the basic channels? Would you buy a new sports car, but agree to accept a used compact car in it’s place? So, why do we settle for mediocre results in our companies? As Jim Collins said, “Good is the enemy of great.”
- If your sales people understood the psychology of the sales process, could they sell more? Could you sell more with fewer sales people?
- If your managers learned more effective leadership skills, could they lead more effectively? Could managers manage more employees?
- If your senior leadership team viewed the organizational change process as a human behavior process and not a list of tasks to be accomplished, would your changes be implemented more fully and more quickly? Could change become a normal part of your organization’s culture?
- If you dealt with the top 3 troubling people issues now, would productivity, morale, departmental performance and organizational results improve?
- If you understood that organizational structure, by its very existence creates dysfunction, would you stop creating new processes to fix the dysfunctional old processes? Isn’t there a better way?
- If you acknowledged that the management model we are all using is more than 100 years old, would you consider some management innovation concepts to reduce costs and build competitive advantage?
I know what you’re thinking. You’re already so busy. “How can I find the time to address these challenging issues?” The problem is that if you don’t do anything, you’ll continue to get the results you’ve gotten in the past.
However, if you’re committed to addressing these issues, find experts and resources with the advanced skills and experience to help you with these issues. If done right, the cost of getting the expertise will be offset many times over by the on-going organizational and financial benefits. In fact, if you ask us to help, we guarantee your results.
All of our free blog articles are posted here in 12 categories. Our Web site with testimonials from clients in a variety of industries is here. Finally, for a free, no-obligation consultation with our Founder and President, Jim Connolly, contact Jim here.
To your success!
Improving Your Business Results
In the best-selling book, “Execution” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Execution is defined as, “a discipline of questioning, analysis and follow-through.” The authors go on to explain that Execution is a discipline for meshing strategy with reality, aligning people with goals and achieving the results promised.
Improve Your Business Results
What can you do today to improve your ”discipline of questioning, analysis and follow-through?”
In a succinct and effective way, the book suggests that the key is in aligning three processes; the people process, the strategy process and the operations process.
Now, traditional thinking would suggest setting the strategy and then aligning the people and operations capability to the chosen strategy. In essence, the thought is to make sure you have the people and operations capability to carry out the chosen strategy.
However, this thinking is wrong because there is often no solid link between these three critical processes. So, these processes operate somewhat independently of one another and it feels like you are running in Jell-O. For example, if a strategy is chosen that can’t be supported by the current people and/or operations processes, the plan is doomed and results fall short.
Simple But Not Easy
The key is that each of these three processes has to be aligned with the other two. This is much different than the traditional method outlined above. When you align each process with the other two, every area is on the same page with every other area. When that occurs, magic happens.
This process is simple, but the work is not necessarily easy. However, when you finally achieve alignment between these three processes, every area of your entire organization will be working in sync to improve business performance and, ultimately, business results.
For more insights into how to improve business performance and business results, check out our other blog categories here.
Sign up here for our free monthly newsletter which describes how we apply our advanced expertise in human behavior and organizational process to deliver results for our clients.
For a no-cost, no-obligation consultation with Founder and President, Jim Connolly, contact him here.
To your success!
Tackle Ineffeciencies Before Innovation
I’ve been swamped with organizational restructuring projects for the last 15 months.
I’ve seen hundreds of processes and practices that needed to be eliminated or restructured significantly, including:
- Irrelevant Processes developed to feed information to software that had been replaced twice since the process was put in place
- Management practices that amounted to “welcome aboard - good luck”
- Leadership practices which indicated that leadership was the first priority right after you got your regular full time job done
- Approaches to organizational change that bordered on “if we don’t acknowledge the need for change we won’t have to change”
At the same time, the latest trend for organizations is the need for innovation. Organizing in new and radically different ways in order to reduce costs, increase profits and improve competitive position. Innovation is great, but….
Shouldn’t we address the “drafty windows” and the “old furnace” in our organizations before adding “solar panels” and a “windmill”?
Opportunities to improve business results by addressing a long list inefficiencies can yield immediate results and build a foundation for creative and innovative thinking. Sure, some inefficiencies are politcally off limits. So, tackle the others so those elephants in the room (related post) stand out more noticeably.
3 Steps To Improve Business Results
- Figure out what to stop doing - such as gathering data no one uses, eliminating the five unnecessary steps in the order entry process, etc.
- Do things differently - improve processes, management practices, etc. and, in the process, get the organization more comfortable with on-going organizational change.
- Then, and only then, consider how innovation can provide the opportunity to dramatically improve the way you do business.
For more insights on improving business performance and results, reference our other blog post categories here. For a no-cost and no-obligation consultation to discuss your business challenges with our Founder and President, contact Jim Connolly here.
A Leadership Teaching Moment
“Why do we have to increase our revenue target for next year?”, the young supervisor asked his boss frustrated because he thought the budgeting process was over three weeks ago.
“Because of the Golden Rule,” the boss replied.
“The Golden Rule?”, the puzzled young supervisor replied.
“Yes,” the boss said. “The people with the gold make the rules.” There was a pause.
“How can they sit up there and arbitrarily increase our targets?”, the young supervisor said rather boldly.
“Great question”, the boss replied. “Because of the shareholders”, the boss replied knowing that a teaching moment was about to take place.
The young supervisor was very puzzled. “Aren’t we a private company?”, the supervisor added.
“Yes we are”, the boss said. He went on. “But the five shareholders who own the company have a choice to make on where to invest their money. Should they continue to invest here where there is a risk that they could lose some of their money and where their return is not guaranteed or should they sell the company and put their money in the bank and get a guaranteed return? We have to make the case to the shareholders that investing in the company again next year is the best return on investment for them.”
“Wow, now that makes more sense,” the young supervisor said enlightened by his boss’ teaching moment. “So, what can we do to increase the revenue target for next year?”, he added.
“Let’s go back over the numbers and see what we can do”, the boss said now confident that his new young supervisor was committed to this organizational goal for the first time.
For more insights on how to effectively link employees, process, organizational results and return on investment in organizations, check out our other blog articles here.
The Job Interview Process Is Dysfunctional
The goal of the job interview process is to end up with a fully engaged employee who contributes significantly to the company’s operations and who is still doing so two years later. If you’ve interviewed and hired people, you know that the job interview process is far from perfect.
Even worse than falling short of this goal, the job interview process also often results in unintended consequences such as hiring an employee who is now causing issues that didn’t exist before. Examples might include poor service to customers, lost sales opportunities, disrupting teamwork and, over time, causing other employees to leave the company because of their poor behavior.
Four Factors
There are four factors that contribute to the job interview process becoming dysfunctional:
- Employers are not clear about what they’re looking for in a job candidate - When multiple owners have multiple opinions on what their looking for, the process is doomed from the start. Or, when the owner says “I’ll know it when I see it,” the owner will settle for the best candidate available instead of a candidate that meets the pre-defined criteria.
- Employers are eager to fill the position - The search goes on longer than expected and employers get nervous about an empty sales territory or too much overtime for office staff covering an empty position. The temptation is to fill the position quickly.
- The job candidate wants the job, but is not a fit - Job candidates may be unemployed and need a job, might be looking for a job before they get fired or they might simply be unhappy in their current jobs for whatever reason. When a job candidate’s strengths don’t match up with the requirements of the position, the process is doomed. Candidates come incredibly well prepared for interviews nowadays and determining whether they are a fit for the position is difficult at best.
- Using a placement firm doesn’t guarantee success - Now matter how much integrity the firm has and no matter their track record, the relationship with a search firm sets up a potentially dysfunctional relationship. Because of the structure of the relationship, their goal is not your goal. Their goal is to get one of their candidates hired so they can generate revenue for their firm. In this kind of a relationship, they are not sitting on your side of the table. And, ultimately, that’s not in your best interest.
Strategies For Delivering Organizational Results
Again, the goal of a job search is to end up with a fully engaged employee contributing significantly to the company’s operations and still doing so 2 years later. What can you do to improve your employee selection results? Two things.
One, pay careful attention to the four contributing factors listed above and do what you can to put processes in place to avoid them. Do this for every job search you conduct, even front line and clerical employees. We all know of those offices where the goal is not to set off the moody receptionist or anger the overbearing clerical person. Where dysfunction exists, productivity and customer service suffer.
And two, if you’re going to spend money on the search process, consider using the services of a behaviorial interviewing expert. This person sits on your side of the table and has years of experience in overcoming these four obstacles in what should otherwise be a process that helps you grow a successful business.
To your success!
For more helpful tips as you negotiate the employee selection process, see our blog articles on interviewing.
