Tag Archives: Ability

How Do You Train Others to Fill Your Shoes? Four Points

Situation: A CEO of a small but rapidly growing company needs to transfer her knowledge and experience to current employees and new hires. This includes project management, IT management and engineering. To support the company’s growth, she needs to focus on business development and closing sales to important clients. How do you train others to fill your shoes?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • Quash any skepticism associated with the release of control of areas that were previously overseen to grow the company to its current state.
    • Selected individuals with the capacity oversee these operations. As the working relationship develops trust will replace any existing skepticism about these individuals’ ability to take on these roles.
  • Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. Focus on team management.
    • Hire sales people who will be tolerant of the odds and ends of prospective client behavior. Focus on effectively managing the sales team.
    • Train them to bring the CEO into key points in the sales process where that input can assist – after they have completed initial client development and know that a potential client relationship exists.
  • From time to time, it will be necessary to refocus the efforts of others. What can be done to facilitate this?
    • Ask questions. Try to refocus the conversation.
    • Seek clarification of what is said – “Let me summarize what I heard” – then refocus the conversation.
    • Adjust perspective. When an individual starts to ramble, they may divulge important information without considering the implications. Make mental or written notes and look for opportunities. Their talking can become a gold mine of information.
    • Use the conversation to make a personal connection. People love others who will listen patiently to them and infer trust and connection from this.
  • As CEO, the job is to help others succeed. The result is the success of the whole enterprise.
    • Remember that there are different levels of sophistication. Adjust the mindset and exercise tolerance over these differences.
    • Focus on passions and strengths. Get others to assist in areas which are not your strengths, but which may be strengths for them.

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How Do You Build the Right Organization? Four Observations

Situation: To accommodate future growth, a company has to build its management infrastructure and has developed an organizational chart to guide this process. Should preference  be given to existing personnel who are qualified and have expressed an interest in the new positions or should leadership wait until they identify exceptional outside talent for the new positions? How do you build the right organization?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Move forward with internal talent that have been identified. The company and management know these people and the “ideal” outsider may also come with “less than ideal” baggage.
  • Create a 90-day plan with specific broad objectives for those who will be offered the open positions. Let them know that the assignments are conditional upon their ability to achieve their objectives during the 90-day period. Provide coaching, and cross-departmental training to give them the best chance to succeed.
  • For one position, there are two individuals who have expressed an interest in the decision. How should the CEO choose between these individuals?
    • Move forward with the individual who is considered the best choice, but offer training and support for the second individual so that there is a ready candidate for new positions that may open, or a natural successor should the position in question open up for any reason.
  • The company has a very flat organization chart. Individual employees work on several projects, with a different manager for each, simultaneously. What is the best way to evaluate individuals in this situation?
    • Use a 360 peer-to-peer and peer-to-boss approach to gather feedback for performance appraisals. There are a number of web-based systems available. This will provide an objective source of feedback to support performance appraisals and reviews.

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How Do You Manage the Company’s Growth? Seven Solutions

Situation: A CEO is contemplating the company’s growth over the next year. One key manager is leaving, an aggressive target has been set for the year, and the company needs to fund this growth from planned cash flow. The biggest question is whether the existing team can handle this growth. How do you manage the company’s growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • All managers reach the limit of their abilities sooner or later. It happens on different timetables to different people. The critical question is how well does the team learn along the way?
  • It’s important to recognize first, what you don’t know, and second, to decide how to cover this deficiency.
    • The deficit can be filled through team learning, hiring someone with the need expertise, or bringing in a consultant with the needed skills.
  • If there are too many meetings, are they all necessary? Do they accomplish what needs to be done? Or might they be part of a routine or habit that needs review.
    • Beware the standing meeting.
  • Analyze the company’s infrastructure. Look at strengths and weaknesses of all departments. Determine the resources necessary to fill in the gaps.
  • Look at things that are being done now that perhaps shouldn’t be done.
    • Alternatively, are there things you are not being done that should be done?
    • What risks is the company assuming through current management behavior?
  • Don’t accept problems brought to the CEO for remedy without an alternative of some kind from the individual raising the problem.
    • The CEO can’t do it all; that’s why there’s a management team.
  • Choose with care those issues delegated to a peer or subordinate for solution.
    • Another CEO told of an issue where he delegated a critical project to the wrong person and the job wasn’t done.
    • Confidence must be established for effective delegation.

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How Do You Increase Brand Awareness? Six Observations

Situation: A CEO wants to increase brand awareness for her company and its primary service. The objective is to increase the client base and drive revenue growth. They have identified their primary growth opportunity and differentiating advantage. What else should they do? How do you increase brand awareness?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What is lacking is a clear vision, path, and marketing plan. These are prerequisites to deciding either the solution or hiring a high caliber individual to execute the plan.
  • What steps are involved?
    • Survey 20% of current clients. Ask “why did you choose us?”
    • Develop the tools to track and show clients service performance online.
    • Use these same tools to show company performance online.
    • Tune messaging to potential clients to highlight demonstrated service performance.
    • Play elite – as the company’s name and reputation grow, clients should aspire to being accepted as clients.
  • Think long-term.
    • What is unique about the company’s ability to manage and extend the longevity of clients’ key assets?
    • How well prepared are potential clients to manage this on their own?
    • How does the company help potential clients to manage and extend the life of those assets?
  • Once there is a clear plan, fine-tune the internal focus of the company to align with the plan.
  • Increase involvement in communities where potential clients are found.
    • Host seminars and webinars on relevant topics.
    • Evening seminars in locations that potential customers congregate – existing clients attend and bring a friend.
    • Focus on referrals from existing clients – with a reward – a free consultation.
    • Look for non-competing service providers who can be good referral sources.
  • Make it easy for potential clients to switch. Use mass-marketing to spread the word with a multi-tiered approach to different segments of the target market.

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Should You Sell or Buy Another Company? Six Thoughts

Situation: A founder CEO is faced with two options – either selling his company or buying a complimentary company. The acquisition would fulfill his dream as CEO, but he is concerned both about the synergy between the two entities and his ability to manage the combined company. Should he sell, or buy the other company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Given these concerns approach the purchase opportunity skeptically. Be more prepared to say no than yes.
  • In evaluating his ability to run a larger operation, the CEO should objectively assess his own abilities.
    • A good CEO is not a Superman. A good CEO creates a viable business model and vision and hires a good team to bring that model to reality.
    • Consider past accomplishments. In an industry where nobody makes money the CEO has created a business model that is sustainable, highly profitable, and technically superior. The only thing lacking is size in terms of revenue.
    • The new opportunity – on the right terms – can launch the company from dominance in a niche to dominance in a significantly larger industry.
  • Assess the new opportunity both as a technical and cultural match. If there is a good cultural match:
    • Fewer things must go right to add value.
    • The purchase provides a channel to a larger market.
    • The acquisition will rapidly speed company growth.
    • The biggest concern will be the time to manage both entities.
  • The most important factor will be the chemistry between the two company teams. If the chemistry is good, the combination offers reasonable assurance that the two teams will complement each other.
  • Look at the purchase as an opportunity to build a win-win with enduring value.
  • In considering outside investors to support the acquisition, be cautious about financial partners and the conditions behind each financing option.

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How Do You Transition to New Leadership? Four Perspectives

Situation: The CEO of a professional service company is reaching retirement age. The plan for years has been for a key field manager to take on this role; however, neither the CEO, the founder nor most employees feel that this individual is up to the job. What can be done to either better prepare the key manager for the new role, or to demonstrate that this is unfeasible? How do you transition to new leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • For the long-term benefit of the company, it is important to create a situation that will either prepare the field manager to succeed or provide the Company with a back-up plan for ongoing leadership.
  • If the CEO and founder are concerned about this individual’s ability to succeed, then coordinate a plan with the founder and then meet with the key manager.
    • Let the key manager know that the owners plan to sell the company in 3 years.
    • This can be an internal sale – the CEO and founder sell their shares to the key manager – or the owners will look for an outside buyer to buy out all current owners.
    • See how the key manager responds.
    • If the key manager expresses an interest in buying the CEO’s and founder’s shares, then require this individual to make the same level of financial commitment that the CEO and founder have made.
  • Another CEO experienced a comparable situation with an individual who was both underperforming and a significant shareholder.
    • This CEO created a very public vision of what he expected this individual to achieve – in positive terms. The CEO also put an outside hire in a similar role to create a performance comparison. The result was a significant increase in performance by the inside individual and a successful transition to additional responsibility.
  • If the key manager is to be put on a track that leads to the CEO role there will be two challenges: assuring that this individual can acquire the skills to succeed and assuring that the individual can demonstrate successful leadership within the Company. To meet these challenges, take the following steps:
    • Make a public announcement of the plan to transfer the mantle of leadership to the key manager;
    • Raise the bar of expectations for the key manager to demonstrate his or her leadership capacity;
    • Define a full program of training to provide the key manager with the skills to lead the Company;
    • Ideally, allow the key manager to prove his or her mettle through a highly visible responsibility – like growing a key market segment – so that he or she gains the respect of the others.
    • Require the same level of financial commitment that the CEO and founder currently bear, so that everyone knows that the key manager has “skin in the game.”
    • Put the key manager on the same compensation program as the CEO and founder, as this will become his or her compensation program on becoming CEO.

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How Do You Optimize a Promotion? Four Recommendations

Situation: A company has a long-term employee who has been growing in responsibility as Customer Service Supervisor. The CEO is considering giving this employee the new title of Production Manager at the same time that the employee receives an annual wage increase. How do you optimize a promotion?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Any promotion or increase in responsibility must be consistent with the strategic direction of the company. What are the company’s current and future needs and, based on past performance, can this individual satisfy those needs? If so, this may be a good match.
  • In addition, it is important to consider the needs and career path of the individual. Does the new position involve an increased time commitment, additional skills and training, or other important factors, and is the individual prepared for this increased commitment? Will a higher level of commitment be rewarded financially? The only way to answer these questions is to have a conversation with the individual.
  • If as the first two questions are considered there is any doubt, a longer-term transition may be appropriate. Meet with the Customer Service Supervisor and set a series of goals and objectives that will demonstrate their ability to assume the new role over a 6 month time frame. The concept here is that you must work at the level of the new job before you get it.
  • Before embarking on the above recommendations, draft a job description and list of responsibilities for the new Production Manager position, consistent with the company’s needs as it grows. This will involve input from employees who currently handle these responsibilities. Also look at the reporting structure as it currently exists and as it may change.

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