Author Archive
Closing The Gap
As a company, our mission is to help companies like yours close the gap between the results that leaders want to achieve and the ability of their organizations to deliver those results. Why is there a gap? Here are three reasons:
- Organizational structure issues such as inefficient processes, outdated ways of organizing the work and bloated bureaucracy get in the way of delivering results.
- Organizational behavior issues, based on patterns of predictable human behavior, such as individual goals not aligned with organizational goals, one or more employees not in positions where they are using their strengths and ineffective leadership that drains motivation and initiative, which thwart even the best of efforts to achieve goals.
- A lack of focus on results. Many companies generate good ideas and enthusiasm initially, but fail to execute on those ideas because they find out that the work involved in getting an idea implemented is harder than initially anticipated or employees believe the idea is always someone else’s to work on or they get distracted on other initiatives.
As the business leader, focus your energy on fixing these issues in your organization and your organization’s ability to deliver results will improve dramatically.
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Where There Are People…There Are Issues
When discussing his rise through the ranks of management to executive leadership over the course of thirty one years, one of my clients said, “The time between rewarding moments is often filled with frustrating weeks.” Is that true for you? If you said yes, you’ve obviously had enough leadership experience to know that there is some element of truth in this statement, because not every day is rewarding. If this statement is not true for you, you’re either not really leading or you are one of those rare exceptions.
Effective leadership is a simple process, but difficult to well. If it wasn’t difficult, everyone would do it and everyone would do it well. I do believe that leadership skills can be learned. However, I also believe some people are born with some talents that, if developed, can make them highly effective leaders. In either case, if you are interested in improving your leadership effectiveness, make it a priority in your schedule to take four L.I.T.E. steps.
Lead Proactively, Not Emotionally
When thrust into a leadership role, you may have nothing to rely on other than your natural instincts. If you’re an impatient person, you’ll likely be an impatient leader. If you’re a dynamic person, you’re likely to be a dynamic leader. And so on.
The key is not to let your leadership style be determined by your emotions, your mood or your personality. Leadership requires skills. Effectively leadership requires developing knowledge, skills and talents into a strength.
Whether you aspire to a leadership role or you are currently in a leadership role, leadership skills can be and should be learned and developed. The most effective leaders are those who coach / develop / grow / mentor their followers along a path toward peak performance.
Leading employees effectively and developing them into peak performers provides a significant return on investment for the organization. That’s the highest and best use of leadership skills.
Influence, Not Control
Leadership is an influence process.
In the “good ol’ days”, leaders could say to an employee, “Do this or you’re fired.” If the employee complied, the leader was successful. The leader had the control in that situation.
Nowadays, leaders often don’t have direct control in a situation. And, even if the leader can today say, “Do this or you’re fired,” they know that this is a costly standoff. Leadership effectiveness is achieved when the employee carries out the leader’s direction even when the leader is not looking. When this happens, the leader has influenced the employee to embrace the assignment and/or direction. When this is done successfully, the leader multiplies his or her efforts several times over.
Think First, Then Speak
Wouldn’t work be easier if you could single-handedly do the work of all the people who report to you? There wouldn’t be any need for leadership, but, if you could do all of that work alone, work would be easier than leading effectively, wouldn’t it?
The difficulty in the leadership role is that we have to accomplish objectives through the work of other people. And, as the title of this article says, where there are people – there are issues. Those we lead are not automatically single-mindedly focused on whatever we want them to do. They have issues. And those issues don’t always line up with the work we have for them to do.
The clarity of our communication on what exactly we want them to do, why we want them to do it and how it fits into the larger scope of things will determine our success in getting employees to embrace the work we have for them. Generation Y is called that for a reason. When given any assignment, they want to know “Why?” The reality is that it’s not just Generation Y, we all want to know why something needs to be done. We want to know the larger context within which this assignment fits.
The key is to think through what and how you want to communicate your leadership guidance. Clearly communicating what needs to be done and why it needs to be done is one of the hallmarks of effective leadership. Think first, then speak.
Exit If You Hate It
If you end up in a leadership role and you hate it, quit! Life is too short.
Just as it takes a certain set of interests to enjoy a career as a Geologist, leaders thrive on the fact that where there are people – there are issues. If you went to school to be an accountant, worked in your field and now find yourself doing leadership stuff instead of accounting stuff and you hate it, quit. Go back to being an accountant. We’re each wired with a unique set of talents, skills, knowledge, interests, and experience. Find out where your “sweet spot” is and make a career there. You’ll quickly find that it doesn’t feel like work anymore.
Leadership is a noble calling like many other roles. Some of us thrive on the frustrating weeks because of the rewarding moments. If leadership is your calling, spend your career taking these four steps to improve your knowledge, skills and leadership effectiveness. The Employers’ Association has programs throughout the year geared specifically to help you develop leadership skills.
Building Competitive Advantage Is Not Enough
As a business owner/leader I would guess that one of the things that probably frustrates you is that employees don’t think like you do. That’s why you’re the owner, isn’t it? You may have numerous examples of how your employees “don’t get it.” If you had to rank them, what’s the most significant issue that employees don’t get?
My guess is that the single most important issue that employees don’t understand is this: competitive advantage is fleeting. Organizations need to build the reality of having advantages only temporarily into how we hire, develop, allocate and manage resources.
More than any other issue, I don’t think employees grasp this reality. So, they wonder why you were pleased with last quarter’s results, but now you’re preoccupied with this quarter’s results. You’re pleased that we signed two new good sized customers, but concerned about losing long-standing customers.
Do you agree/disagree that the fleeting nature of competitive advantage is the #1 issue that your employees don’t see? If not this issue at the top of the list, what is the #1 issue that employees don’t see that you see? Click on Comment and post your response.
Training Is For Animals
Training is often seen as the answer to many organizational challenges. Besides, it’s less expensive than hiring a consultant, right? When you look strictly at the outlay of cash, training may be less expensive than many other alternatives. However, when you consider the return on your investment, which should repay your cash outlay and lost productivity many times over, training is often money thrown into the furnace.
Most training is so poorly designed that it is clearly a waste of every dollar spent on it.
Trainers have learned how to use PowerPoint slides. They’ve learned how to use stories to make concepts stick. Some trainers are even very good presenters.
But, oh so often, trainers fail to make the link between the knowledge they share and the change in beliefs that has to happen in a participants mind that will, ultimately, change a the participant’s behavior.
Here’s the formula: Knowledge that changes beliefs will change individual behavior. Change enough individual behavior and you can change organizational performance. And, since organizational performance determines organizational results, effective training should help an organization improve it’s results.
When selecting a trainer, ask for references who will say that the training provided actually helped improve the organization’s results.
Next post: Do you need training or consulting?
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!
