Is this a typical day in your middle managers’ lives?

• arrive in office
• spend one hour updating employee’s sick absence record (used to be done by HR but that department has been downsized)
• spend one hour processing invoices (used to be done by Finance but that department has been downsized)
• spend one and a half hours resolving laptop issue (used to be done by on-site IT people but that department has been downsized)
• lunch
• spend one and a half hours resolving air-conditioning issue (used to be done by Facilities but that department has been downsized)
• spend one and a half hours on emails (used to be done by Assistant but role had to be cut following recent budget round)
• spend half an hour on job they were recruited for before leaving for home.

In a seven hour day (of course, they’re all working a lot longer than that to make up time) half an hour represents just over 7% efficiency.

And working longer hours to make up time represents an even less efficient approach, particularly as morale starts to get affected.

Now I’m not saying that they’re aren’t good reasons for rationalization of business functions. Dead wood, archaic processes, over-staffed departments… they all exist and leaders need to tackle them.

But if this is at the expense of important middle-ranking Executive efficiency… then you need a different approach.

In other words, can you let your managers manage please?
That’s what you pay them for.

Tags: absence air conditioning budget business functions downsized executive efficiency finance half an hour half an hour half hours invoices job lunch middle managers rationalization typical day
 

Well, it depends on how old they are. If they are aged 6 or below, then the answer’s probably yes.

And if they’re above, then the answer’s probably disappointing.

Which means that the HR/appraisal/discipline industry is wasting its time. At least, it’s wasting its time trying to change people.

Let me try another tack. One of the latest corporate mantras is that ‘we need to embrace diversity’. Now, if that’s the case, why are so many leaders trying to get everyone to be the same?

The answer is all about control. If everyone in an organization is broadly similar in personality, outlook and thinking then the perception is that directing them will be easier.

The trouble is, with everyone the same, there is no internal challenge and teams suffer because they usually thrive on the differences among their constituent parts.

So, what I’m coming to, in a roundabout way, is that difference is good. And that what the HR/appraisal/discipline industry needs to do is harness differences and apply them for the corporate good. The customer facing guy who’s over assertive and should never have been let near customers in the first place should be allowed to move and apply his talents in, say, procurement (where his assertiveness may strike better purchasing deals). And the procurement guy who likes to please people can take his place in Customer Service.

It’s called horses for courses. And it’s common sense.

And where you cannot change someone and there’s no other course for the horse? Well… that’s one for the non-culpable inefficiency route, I’m afraid. And a mental note to look at recruitment procedures.

Can you change people?

Tags: assertiveness change common sense constituent customer service discipline diversity horses inefficiency internal challenge mantras perception personality procurement recruitment procedures roundabout way talents
 

Bringing in outsiders is an interesting step for a Chief Executive or Managing Director to take.

Before I continue I have to declare an interest, of course. I am an ‘outsider’ for those companies who employ my consultancy. I will return to that point at the end of this blog entry.

Bringing in outsiders is an interesting step to take because it’s often expensive financially… and in terms of morale.

The first bit’s self-evident… but I should explain the morale bit. There resides in your workforce a collective knowledge about your business that you cannot replicate. No amount of briefing will ever bring outsiders up to the same point of knowledge of your business and marketplace that your employees have.

Why then ask someone outside your business to consider an issue when you’ve probably already got the answer on your doorstep?

I think the answer lies in the ‘t’ word… ‘trust’. Many business leaders have a psychological mistrust about what their employees might tell them about their business and a massive willingness to believe an outsider. Employees therefore see a consultant brought in and morale dips because they feel their own standing in their business undermined. This usually happens when the business is in the cost-cutting part of the ‘investment/cost-cutting cycle’… so the expenditure on outsiders sits uneasily alongside internal budget cuts, further undermining morale.

And the morale of this story (sorry… puns are a weakness!). Look inside your business before you look outside.

Oh… and why am I different?

Because I work with you as the leader… and am prepared to tell you how it is, as I’ve done in this article. That’s something you really might not get from your employees.

Tags: blog entry business leaders chief executive collective knowledge consultancy dips doorstep internal budget managing director marketplace mistrust outsider outsiders puns trust willingness workforce
 

I planned writing this article. There was a time when I was going to do it and a place. I knew the resources I would bring into play (my training and experience) and how it would be published. I knew why I was writing it and my expected return on investment (more traffic to my website and more prospective clients who I hope will sense the value I can add to their businesses).

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you planning… a rational deployment of simple logic and common-sense that sets out how one or more objectives will be reached.

Right?

Well no, actually. Wrong.

Apparently, corporate planning has to be a lot more challenging than that. It’s got to be a tortuous, tough, man-hours consuming nightmare with output measured in double-figure iterations of elaborate documents that no-one ever refers to because they’re over-written, full of jargon and exhausting long sentences just like the one you’ve just read.

In other words, it’s got to be a waste of time.


Let me suggest some strategic planning guidelines for you

• don’t feel it has to be a democratic process that involves everyone. It doesn’t.
• do feel that it should be driven by the marketing department (and not the finance department, please) – because marketing and strategic planning should be one and the same
• don’t feel comfortable with a 100 page document that’s destined for dust gathering on a nice appointed shelf in your office
• do feel comfortable with a simple plan that analyses your marketplace and the development of your offering within it
• don’t keep it to yourself
• do share it with everyone (yes, that’s what that conference is for).

I could go on… but I don’t need to. And neither do you at the next planning round.

Tags: common sense corporate planning deployment finance department iterations jargon ladies and gentlemen man hours marketing department nightmare page document planning guidelines prospective clients return on investment sentences simple logic simple plan strategic planning tough man waste of time
 

I have alluded in past blog entries to the dangers of an overly democratic approach to leadership. In other words, take the opinions of the many on board in your decision making, and the resulting business direction could be a very watered down facsimile of what it should be.

It’s about time, then, that I flipped the argument over then to consider the dangers of an overly autocratic approach.

Leaders who go it alone run a massive risk. The risk is that any gaps in their expertise or experience or any flaws in the personality intrude unhelpfully on the decision making process. Brilliant and compelling leaders can falter as they rally the troops marvelously to less than robust strategic plans.

Even the most expert of leaders therefore need what I will call a ‘leadership team’. This should comprise senior people who can fill in any gaps in the leader’s style and abilities.

Some strong-minded and strong-willed leaders might throw their hands up in horror at this, so I feel obliged to provide a very serious history lesson.

Who was Britain’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) during the Second World War? Winston Churchill? No… the CIGS was Alan Brooke (later, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke), foremost military advisor to Winston Churchill who was, of course, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.

Brooke was a counterweight to Churchill, whom he described as a ‘genius mixed with an astonishing lack of vision… quite the most difficult man to work with I have ever struck.’ He was one of the few to stand up to the formidable Prime Minister, one without whom the outcome of the war would have been quite different. Churchill acknowledged Brooke’s ability to resist him, once saying ‘When I thump the table and push my face towards him what does he do? Thumps the table harder and glares back at me.’

There are lots of strong leaders out there. I say to you that your strength could also be your company’s weakness. Make sure that your self-knowledge includes recognition of your fallibilities and there’s a good counterweight team around you—including those prepared to thump the table back!

Tags: alan brooke autocratic approach business direction chief of the imperial general staff cigs counterweight democratic approach gaps genius history lesson leadership team military advisor minister of defense prime minister second world war self knowledge strategic plans vision winston churchill
 

Someone asked me recently for my views on favoritism in business.

I said that any leader guilty of it could expect the same result as holding a hand-grenade with the pin out, i.e.:


I have more than once in this blog looked to sport to provide an analogy. With favoritism as my subject, I didn’t have to look very far.

One of the greatest motorsport categories in the world is Formula One. Different teams tend to prosper from one year to the next, of course. This year it’s the Red Bull team.

One of the biggest events of the year is the Grand Prix held at Silverstone in the UK. At this year’s event, the Red Bull team driver Sebastian Vettel’s new-design front wing failed in qualifying. There was only one other new wing available—on his team mate Mark Webber’s car.

Now—Vettel was marginally in front in the driver’s championship. For this reason the team principal (boss) decided to take Webber’s wing and give it to Vettel for the race.

The outcomes of this crass decision (crash decision!?) were many and damaging:

• one disaffected Red Bull driver wonders openly at a press conference why he’s signed for another year at the team
• the press reception is very hostile
• the disaffected driver wins the race with the old front wing… and with the comment ‘Not bad for the number two driver’
• open hostility between the two engineering teams within Red Bull
• difficult media questions
• damaged brand?

I put a question mark after the last bullet point because that outcome is not yet known. But it is possible that the sponsors will not like an association between their brand and unfairness.

So… my question to you is…

Are you guilty of unfairly preferring one of your direct reports or key personnel to another?

If so, what problems are you storing up for the future?

Tags: analogy brand boss crash damaged brand deadly sin favoritism formula one grand prix hand grenade leader mark webber media questions motorsport categories nasty open hostility red bull sebastian vettel silverstone sin team mate unfairness
 

Goal!

You’ll hear that word quite a lot this year with the soccer world cup taking place in South Africa.

You certainly hear that word quite a lot in business… and not always in the happiest of circumstances.

Let me explain.

There are lots of games played in corporations. For example, the annual budget round where departmental heads make their pitch for funds (always overstated) and the CEO is determined to keep costs low (invariably unrealistically so).

Another example is the annual cycle of targets and the way these translate into the goals set for individual members of staff.

This should be the chance for a realistic forecast of what the member of staff can achieve given their expertise and experience and the potential for achievement given company culture and the market.

So why’s this activity so dreaded by members of staff and management alike?

Let’s take the manager first. She’s usually under pressure from the senior management team to set over-stretching and unrealistic targets. This is because senior management have exaggerated the company’s potential to shareholders and to the markets. The manager knows the targets she is about to share are unrealistic, or will cause serious stress, but is obliged to set these goals and ’sell’ them to her staff.

And the member of staff? Well, he’s just spent a year chasing last year’s unrealistic target and has ‘fallen short’, compromising his bonus. He wants smarter, more achievable targets set… which will test him—but not to the point of destruction, or at least disaffection.

Or leaving.

Yes… notwithstanding the global economic recession and difficult labor market, people will leave. They’ll either take their valuable knowledge or contacts lists to a competitor, or set up on their own. A new game at the very least, and one where they can be more self-determining and set their own rules.

How smart is your company when it comes to setting corporate targets and translating them into people goals?

Tags: bonus budget ceo circumstances company culture competitor corporations departmental heads disaffection goal global economic recession lots of games new game pitch senior management team shareholders soccer world cup south africa stress target targets
 

A fundamental tenet of business activity in general and marketing in particular is that the products or services offered by a company match customer needs.

Few if any business leaders would argue with this. No strategy based on launching a product and then chasing the market is ever going to be as effective as understanding the market and then developing the right product.

A personal frustration I have, however, is the number of business leaders who fail to apply the same principles internally.

By this I mean… why treat your internal audience (your staff) any differently when it comes to motivating them? In fact, how can you properly motivate them if you don’t understand their needs?

This is the point where a lot of business leaders get their checkbook out… or their stick. But motivating people need not cost money—and it certainly shouldn’t cost good will.

So, what do your staff want?

You’ve probably come across the concept of ‘hierarchy of needs’ – a theory in psychology developed by Abraham Maslow in the early 1940s.

Maslow suggested that once basic physiological (food, water, shelter and so forth), security (employment, health, property and so on) and love/belonging (friendship, family, intimacy) needs were satisfied then humans were motivated by things that bolstered their self-esteem and confidence and ultimately, things that allowed them to self actualize (be creative, problem solve and so forth).

Subsequent theorists have taken Maslow to task with some of his thinking… but I still believe a lot of his theory holds good.

So, once you’ve paid people properly (and not all leaders do) and sought to protect their sense of employment longevity with you (not always possible, particular in the current climate, I know) what can you do?

Well, you can listen to them (and listening really is an art) and act to show that you’ve listened. You can encourage them to use their knowledge and creativity. You can empower them, so they feel they have control over what they do and outcomes.

And you can recognize them in ways other than financial.


What Do You Pay?

Tags: 1940s abraham maslow business activity business leaders checkbook climate creative problem creativity friendship family fundamental tenet hierarchy of needs internal audience intimacy longevity match motivating people personal frustration security employment self esteem theorists