For those who want to learn how to create a positive, creative, and innovative thought exchange with your employees, please read on. One of my business clients recently talked to me about something that occurred at one of his company’s recent department manager meetings.
One my client’s coworker’s (known here as Adam) was known as quite a thoughtful and innovative thinker in his work. Problem was Adam did not think his supervisors cared about any of his innovative thoughts and ideas.
Well, this thought was put to the test at the recent meeting. As my client recounts the events, the department executive advised all managers present that the time had come to “reinvent” the way they did business, and, from this point forward, he was welcoming, indeed was encouraging, any and all productive ideas from his valued management staff to help improve operations and performance.
Thinking it was too good to be true, Adam patiently waited his turn, allowing other managers the opportunity to advance their good thoughts. When it came time for Adam to speak, he described several succinct, thoughtful, and innovative ways the department could indeed improve operations and performance, with less effort and expense. The department executive smiled, thanked Adam for his contribution, and continued to allow the other managers to express their thoughts.
My client and his other managers were quite impressed with the contributions made, and, after the meeting, all agreed that Adam had contributed the most.
Indeed, immediately after the meeting Adam was asked to speak with the department executive in private. Yes, the executive was so impressed; he issued Adam a written reprimand for his insubordinate comments and actions at the meeting – right then and there!
So there you have it – what better way to reward a knowledge contribution – why of course, stern discipline! I should note that my client indicated that he, along with other managers were seriously considering whether they should take up that opportunity to contribute as Adam did.
Seriously now – the best way to encourage positive, innovative thoughts and actions from your employees is to be sincere in your request by structuring a knowledge exchange that respects the employee and their contributions, and provides a process to objectively evaluate the merits of the thoughts and actions on the work process, product, or service in your business.
Otherwise, acting like the Prince may soon make you a Pauper!
Economists, financial analysts, and politicians are increasing their rhetoric about an economic recession; yet few are discussing what we as business owners can do to increase our profitability and grow our business in a period of slowed economic activity.
As a business consultant it does me little good to place myself in a theatre and shout "Fire." There is enough of that to go around. For my clients, my business mentoring role is to encourage proactive and positive leadership by enabling business owners to increase their competitive advantage and add further value to their customers needs by participating in the economic recovery.
I will describe 5 strategies business owners can use to increase their growth and their profitability, and encourage business owners to use these strategies to also improve the attitude and outlook of those whom they service. The 5 strategies are – visioning, goal setting, marketing message, marketing strategy, and employee development.
If you are in need of rebuilding your network during a slowed economic cycle, the rewards of these efforts will start to pay off sooner rather than later. Have you incorporated your marketing message into this marketing strategy? Have you asked your customers and network if there are any needs they have that you can assist them with – can you help them in some small, significant way? Don’t go asking for a sale, go offering your help, your assistance – show them how much you do care, how much you value their relationship with you.
Be proactive – engage your employees in the growth of your company – they deliver your products and services, they see inefficiencies, they see opportunities, and if they like working for you and your company, they will want to see it become more profitable. Identify areas of mis-alignment – where you and your employees may not be connected – and engage in a discovery process to become more connected.
We all have a role in economic recovery. I believe we best serve ourselves and each other by taking advantage of the recovery process by paying attention to the little things that have previously made us successful, and that will continue to make us successful in the future. We can choose. I choose to participate in an economic recovery! Do you want to join me? Please let me know your thoughts and comments on other ways we can participate in the economic recovery. Thanks in advance for your positive perspective – it is contagious! See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com.
More often than not business owners talk about business plans in elusive terms, leaving one to wonder if they will ever write one at all. How often have you heard – “I wrote one then put it on the shelf,” “Our plan is out of date – it’s useless,” “It’s too long – no one will read it,” or my favorite – “I’ll pay a consultant to write one!”
Too often the focus has been on writing your plan. I am suggesting a better focus – implementing your plan. Implement it by asking 5 key questions. So, let’s review the 5 key questions, apply them to your business, and discuss next steps.
This process is not new. Some years ago Jim Horan founded The One Page Business Plan Company expressly to help business owners define and implement their plan. He simplified the process by identifying the standard elements of a business plan with 5 simple, universal questions.
Your Vision - What are you building? Simple enough? Where are you now, where do you want to be in 5 years – can you define it in terms of sales, target markets, products and services, and geographic reach? Oftentimes business owners are challenged to answer this question, but when they focus on it – watch out, the dream reignites and the creative energy starts to flow again.
Your Mission – Why does your business exist? Think brand, think benefits (especially when viewed through the eyes of your customer), and think simple, direct, and memorable. What is the Mission of Burger King, of Coca-Cola, of FedEx?
Your Objectives – What results will you measure? What did your gross in sales last year? What do you want to achieve for sales this year? What other goals do you have for your business? Don’t have goals yet? Getting very focused and specific is a key ingredient to your success. Prioritize them and clearly state them.
Your Strategy – How are you going to build your company? What specific strategies and programs do you need to develop and implement to get you there? Think multi-year, look at marketing, sales, organization, technology, process change, human resources. Get the picture?
Your Plans – What work needs to be done? Well, every year you need a plan to get you from point A to point B. How are you going to accomplish your vision, your mission, your objectives, and your strategies? Can you develop a series of action steps to help you get there this year? Do they tie into your other plan elements?
Preparing and implementing a business plan requires a strong, exacting, specific, goals-oriented focus. Simpler is often better. If you can prepare it on one page it will be easier to follow, easier to explain, easier to measure accomplishments, and, yes, easier to achieve the profitability and growth you have envisioned, perhaps in a shorter time frame than you planned. Now, how cool is that!
Try to work a plan that is action-oriented, that is goals-focused, that is top-of-mind every day. Working your business in this way increases the potential for your short term and longer term success. And, don’t let that plan become static. Make it a living, breathing organism, let it encourage you to improve it, update it, and enhance it as you move on your road to success.
Now that we have outlined these 5 simple questions, how about giving it a try? I would love to hear from you. Need any help, let me know. See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com.
How often have you gone way back in your career to find an example of success in order to explain the obvious to business owners about effective employee motivation strategies. Employee motivation, performance, productivity, alignment, and communication are huge topics in change management and business consulting circles. And the solutions are relatively straight-forward and simple. Here are seven that I have used effectively in my career as a chief executive and manager.
Remember CETA, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act organization of the late 1970's and early 1980's? As a newly hired Manpower Planner, part of my job entailed increasing our agency placement rate for the 13 towns we supported. Our placement rate was really or benchmark measure for success, we found jobs for 1 out of 10 people we serviced. Not very good, but a start.
What to do?
Set a Goal. Mine was a 40% placement rate for my first full year. Challenge - I was the Planner, not the implementer, there were 45 other staff members - job developers, career counselors, intake counselors, and occupational trainers. However, I set this as my internal goal (I did not tell anyone at first).
Talk to Other Staff. Really, that's what I did. I asked them about the following - what is your family background, your educational background. What are your career goals? Why did you decide you wanted to work here? What would you like to accomplish while you are here? Are there any suggestions you would make if you had the ability to improve the way you did your particular job? Are there any suggestions you would make if you had the ability to improve the way other staff did their particular job?
Out of this simple process came volumes of information - most of it useful and relevant. This information enabled me to recommend a transformation in the way we identified, recruited, trained, counseled, and found permanent jobs for unemployed persons in our region. And all I did was ask relevant questions and listen to my co-workers. Yes, I performed a ton of follow-on labor market research, conducted numerous follow-on interviews with other staff, and sought and received the approval of the agency director. But, I communicated with my co-workers.
Communicate the Goal. In CETA the work program was contained in a manpower plan. Ours was presented to my director and fellow department managers at a department manager meeting. The director asked all other managers if the 40% goal was realistic and achievable. All said yes, and all said they were willing to work to achieve it. (I don't think the director believed either me or my peers, but that is a post for another day).
Seek Approval. The director and our city manager needed to approve the plan, and then the state manpower office needed to approve it. All 3 parties approved it.
Implement the Plan. It was not my plan, it was the plan developed from hours of conversations with my co-workers. They developed it, put it together. And, with my strong assistance, encouragement, and support, they implemented it.
Measure the Results. We compiled and measured monthly, quarterly, and annual performance data. In each month we showed improvements, and, based on the results, fine-tuned areas of need, together.
Celebrate the Results. After that first year, our placement rate was 42%. We hit our goals. For the next year, we increased the goal to 45%, and achieved it. We all celebrated our accomplishments. We did it together, as a team. We continued to increase our placement rate in each of the following years.
So there you have it - set a goal, communicate and build alignment, communicate the goal, seek approval, implement, measure, and celebrate your achievements. We had fun, worked hard, and achieved our objectives. Yes, this process is repeatable. I am interested in learning how you do this in your business. Please let me know.
As a business advisor and business consultant, clients often ask me to review their employee selection processes. In each instance I will employ the same review process, only varying it depending on the number and variety of different employees and positions – the steps are – employees complete a position analysis questionnaire, employee interviews, supervisor and manager interviews, developing an assessment profile for each position, and, assessing existing employees and employee applicants to this profile.
Why Should Employees Complete a Position Questionnaire?
As any business consultant will tell you, employees do like to be asked their opinion. They also like to be given positive attention. Completing a position analysis questionnaire accomplishes these objectives and also provides a detailed view of the position – its knowledge, skills, and abilities, judgment, complexity, accountability, supervisory responsibilities; its essential functions, and its environmental conditions (physical demands, work environment, motor skills, occupational risk). You can get a very detailed description of the position’s daily, weekly, and monthly tasks.
Why Should Employees Be Interviewed?
Some employees are better at writing, some employees are better at talking – in either event, it always helps to interview at least one employee per position – ostensibly to identify the details from the position questionnaire.
Additionally, it allows the you and the consultant to identify why an employee is working in their current position, what is his training and educational background, what is his career objective, what is his perspective on the company’s effectiveness, who is a higher or a lower performer, what is his frustrations (if any) with his position, his company, and to develop a full list of tasks performed and the reason that they are performed.
Supervisors and managers of these employees are interview for much the same reasons as well as to identify, based on this questioning process, whether the selection process can be modified or enhanced to better match employees to positions and whether there are sufficient motivations in place for employees to excel at their position.
This is often an ideal setting for supervisory staff and the business consultant to discuss position enhancements, performance-based criteria, goal setting, and position benchmarking.
Assessment Profile
Armed with the knowledge obtained from the position questionnaire and employee and supervisor interviews, the next step in the selection process for the consultant is to develop an assessment profile that group the tasks that are performed into categories, and then identify common decision attributes for each of the task categories or groupings.
Common decision attributes are selected from 80 defined under formal axiology, attributes such as accountability for others, balanced decision making, project scheduling, concrete organizing, and quality orientation. Each of the attributes will be assigned a benchmark score to indicate the desired level of competency for each attribute.
The profile is prepared in draft form, comments are solicited from management and staff, and revisions are made. Once the profile is completed, it can then be administered to existing employees to identify their level of competency to the benchmarked attributes.
Prior to utilizing the assessment profile on position applicants, it helps to explain the context in which the profile should be used. Assuming that the company has a functioning recruitment and selection process, job applicants will complete an application, undergo a series of screening interviews with human resources staff and supervisory or management personnel, and be notified if they are finalists for a position.
I often recommend that the assessment profile not be used until the company has narrowed its applicant pool to 3 to 5 persons for the position. The profile, once administered, is interpreted to the company representative by the certified consultant. The consultant can indicate with a high level of certainty, whether or not the applicant will be the best fit for the position.
The profile itself should not become dispositive; it should remain one of the key elements to the selection process. If the employer has already decided to hire an applicant, the profile, as interpreted by the consultant, will alert the employer to categories where the candidate will perform very well, well, or not very well (where they will need additional support). It is usually at this juncture that an employer can discuss with the selected candidate employment conditions, including participation in a professional development program.
Summary
OK, so now you may be trying to figure where this process fits to the person/future fit strategy, (selecting for the long-term contributions of a person to the business’ long-term strategy). Well, engaging your employees in a position improvement process helps the employee and the owner to better understand and appreciate the need to have workforce alignment throughout the company.
Developing an assessment profile becomes a key outcome to the process, and will help a company ensure that it selects for the person/future fit. For existing employees, the profile results become an important ingredient in understanding more about the professional development needs they have that also helps ensure that person/future fit.
I would love to hear how you accomplish employee selection in your company. What process is used? How do you evaluate its effectiveness? How do you provide for the professional development needs of your employees? Let me know. See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com.
You can become the Most Valuable Player in your business when you work to develop and implement a bottom up mission, vision, and purpose strategic process. As many business advisors and business consultants will tell you; you will start to see profit increases to your bottom line within 6 months, and, over the course of 18 months to 3 years, see some serious performance and profitability increases.
How can that happen? Simply put, ask this question of yourself and your coworkers. How widespread is your MVP?
Oftentimes when meeting with a business owner I ask him to explain their MVP – no, not in an athletic sense, as in Most Valuable Player, but a business sense – their Mission, Vision, and Purpose. Once that is explained, I will ask him a follow up question – on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how many of your employees understand that MVP?
Think about it, if you can comfortably quantify your MVP (even if the number is low), you have the capability to improve performance and efficiency in your company. Having your fingers on the pulse of your employees’ perspective is an essential first step in increasing corporate performance.
It continues to impress me that many small and medium sized businesses do not have an MVP. That is right, no mission, no vision, and no purpose. When I ask that question I get a nervous laugh or chuckle. It reminds me of the time worn phrase – you can’t get there if you don’t know where you are going. I am sure you can think of countless variations to this theme.
The FOR WHAT PURPOSE
Of course the business owner who does not have that MVP also may not have a specific revenue and sales goal, may not know if his business is profitable, may not know if his product or service pricing is competitive to the marketplace, and may not know if his marketing strategy is targeted to the right market. Can you think of more examples?
The WHAT
Many times business owners tell me, as their business advisor, that the MVP does not get developed because it is too difficult to get their hands around, to understand. Great point!
So how can you define mission, vision, and purpose in a way that is understood by every employee?
The WHO and HOW
First, ask your employees if they are willing to help you develop your business MVP. Assisted by a business consultant, develop a facilitated discussion and process with your employees. The process, in short form, starts with your employees being asked to assess their current understanding of the company’s mission, its vision, and its purpose (discovery).
This requires some background explanation on what an MVP is, uses illustrations of other corporate MVP’s for comparative purposes, and allow the facilitator to begin structuring a participative and inclusive process.
Next, ask your employees to discuss whether the company’s mission, vision, and purpose are being pursued as efficiently as they could (analysis)? It is during this process that employees will start to make very critical observations about specific business practices and situations. During this phase of the process your business advisor will make every effort to ensure all comments are respected (the facilitator’s credo in this instance is – there are no bad ideas).
This phase needs to be followed with a careful, yet distinct transitional series of questions that suggest that negative observations need to be turned into positive observations that can enhance or improve the observation.
Finally, your business advisor will ask your employees to suggest methods to improve their own connection to your business MVP (prescription). It is during this phase that employees will need to develop specific methods. With proper guidance, I have found employees become fully engaged in brainstorming practical ways to improve the MVP as well as their connection to it.
In all instances, this process will provide comments and suggestions that are useful well beyond the strategic development process. You will find your employees quite eager to comment on marketing, sales, production, inventory, human resource, and other business strategies to help propel the company forward.
The WHY
The process of asking an employee’s opinion and asking further for improvement ideas itself will enhance an employee’s engagement and affinity to the MVP, especially if their ideas are respected and acted upon. You can also engage the employee through a personal development program that enables them to become more efficient and more aligned with the business MVP. Remember the person/future fit and its positive impact on corporate performance? A small investment now can pay dividends over the long term for employers.
So, let’s ask the question one more time. What is your MVP? And, on a scale of 1-10, how many of your employees understand it? What steps do you take to increase that number? Let me know. See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com.
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Many companies claim to have a company strategy – but how does a really good strategy increase your corporate profits? And what is the difference between a really good strategy and a “killer” strategy? Many business consultants won’t tell you this, but - it is quite simple.
Let’s start with your company’s purpose – what is your overriding reason for existing? Is it to eradicate polio, to find a cure for the common cold? Who participated in defining your company’s purpose?
What is a strategy? Most business consultants believe it directs action toward a desired outcome, should bring clarity to your business, and should illustrate to employees where you, as the owner, are taking them, and what actions they need to take to get there.
Company strategies can be really good if they are developed by management and communicated effectively to employees. But, we know that already. Our intent here is to develop a “killer” strategy.
Let’s start with asking employees to participate. Bring in a business advisor to structure a process that allows your staff to explain to you how they are connected personally and professionally to the company’s purpose. You need to start here – this is your foundation, your rock. Identify the commonalities of purpose, of connection – the alignments that exist.
Next, work with your staff to build upon that foundation – what objectives and goals do the employees have to guide them in achieving that purpose – what motivates them personally and professionally to achieve those goals and objectives? Once these are defined, work with your employees to consolidate commonly shared goals and objectives into larger buckets – divisional, departmental, and finally, company goals and objectives.
When you follow this process there will be a strong alignment and relationship between each employee’s purpose and the company’s purpose. Now let’s look at our “killer” strategy.
When you are identifying employee purpose and building the company purpose, ask the employees what specific actions would they undertake to achieve these purposes, these objectives, these goals? There will not be unanimity in their responses, but there will be a very clear pattern to the actions. Work with your staff to aggregate these action steps from a little to a big picture definition process – divisional, departmental, and finally company strategy. We are almost home.
So we have a “killer” strategy. How do we relate that to increased company profits? As you are going through the process of identifying employee purpose, of defining strategy – action steps – define performance benchmarks at each stage. Actively engage your staff in understanding how expenses made in producing a product or providing a service impacts the cost of production and delivery, and actively engage them in understanding how a product or service gets priced for sale to your target market – and explain to them how they can impact the product or service cost. Then, with their involvement, establish reasonable performance benchmarks – time to produce or deliver, quantity of materials used, etc.
Every time I have engaged employees in this discovery and decision process they have taken more ownership of their individual tasks, more responsibility toward helping each other succeed, and more commitment to helping the company be more successful and profitable.
Please let me know how your company could benefit from this process. See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor
Several years ago, researchers at the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (Cornell University) looked at employee selection processes in businesses and found that there were 3 strategies used to select people for positions -
The found that businesses that selected on a person/future fit strategy created the best, long-term workforce alignment.
It never ceases to amaze me! Just about every employer I speak with complains about his employees not being motivated, only caring about their weekly paycheck, and showing no loyalty to the company - and these employees are not long-lasting - they usually will find a "better opportunity" with a competitor, for more pay and fewer hours!
Just recently one of my consulting associates said just that - even though his client had a very generous compensation and benefits program. When I talk with employers now, I try and determine what strategy - if any - they use when selecting employees.
The researchers at Cornell found that companies increasingly are finding that workforce alignment is directly related to an increase in company performance as well as long-term retention of employees.
Doesn't this make sense? If you are aligned with the objectives of your company, you can choose to work for them, knowing the chances are pretty good that you will be working for them longer, and have more opportunities for advancement.
Do you think your company will be modifying its selection processes to accommodate this person/future fit strategy? I certainly would like to know. Drop me a comment on this post and visit me at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor.com. In the meantime, I am going to describe in future posts just how you can go about developing a person/future fit strategy that complements workforce alignment in any company.