Tag Archives: Company

How Do You Continually Raise the Bar on Personal Performance? Five Points

Situation: A CEO is continually focusing on company performance to improve results and efficiency. At the same time, she wants to assure that she is always raising the bar on her own performance as an example to both management and employees. What advice do you have for this CEO? How do you continually raise the bar on personal performance?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Take a lesson from Marcus Buckingham’s book – Now Discover Your Strengths. The Gallup Organization is a leader in social science research on performance. Rule #1 is to focus on improving and sharpening strengths, not on overcoming or improving areas that are not so strong.
    • Look for ways that your strengths complement each other and build on these combinations. This will naturally raise performance and will also bring greater satisfaction.
  • Build personal objectives that will help to sharpen your strengths.
  • Conversely, develop work-arounds for those areas which are not as strong. Look for talent among the others in the organization that address areas where you are not as strong.
    • Have them assist you in work pertaining to these areas.
    • They will enjoy this work because it complements their strengths, and the company will gain the results that are needed. It also allows them to excel in areas where they are the strongest.
  • Take time to reflect and to recharge your batteries. Check your direction and make sure that you are heading in a direction that compliments your long-term goals.
    • Make sure that you are focusing on the right priorities for YOU.
  • Find a mentor – in or outside of your industry. Someone with experience who can provide you with guidance and clarity as you address both day-to-day and long-term challenges.

How Do You Align Vision Among Leadership? Three Approaches

Situation: The CEO of a software company finds that she and her #2 don’t have the same vision for the company concerning objectives and what is required to reach these objectives. In addition, key employees are reaching retirement age. The company needs to bring in new employees to learn the skills of those who will retire. How can these challenges be addressed? How do you align vision among leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Consider the following approach:
    • Add 1-2 people and bring them up to speed within the company so that they can step into the roles of the employees who are nearing retirement.
    • Focus the CEO’s role on creating the development outline and priorities, assisting in closing significant sales opportunities, participating in industry seminars to publicize the company’s capabilities, and guiding administration and finance.
    • Focus the #2’s role on assuming a greater role in new software development and customer support and have this person delegate and oversee internal technology development and code maintenance.
  • In pursuing this approach take the following steps:
    • Buttress the CEO’s skills with another developer who knows the key software, and who can maintain this for the company long-term.
    • Shift development from individual efforts to a collaborative atmosphere to ease and speed integration of new code into the company’s software.
    • Reduce the CEO’s day-to-day administrative role.
    • Increase the #2’s role in software development and reduce focus on maintenance and internal technology.
    • Add an additional resource in sales/marketing to boost company growth.
  • How to Get There?
    • Allow the #2 the latitude to start developing some of his own ideas for new tools or products.
    • Bring in a “marriage counselor” to assist the CEO and the #2 to define a common understanding.
    • One focus will be to establish that they clearly respect and value each other’s talents and contributions. The other focus will be to work through objectives and requirements where there has been difficulty reaching consensus.

[like]

How Do You Reduce Interruptions in the Office? Three Points

Situation: A CEO of a small company finds it difficult to focus of company strategy and direction because on continuous interruptions to handle customer and company issues. Frequent phone calls and employees coming in to ask for guidance or to talk about issues make it difficult to focus on plans for the future. How do you reduce interruptions in the office?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The company has grown to the point that it is time to build a management structure to facilitate decision-making. It’s time to delegate.
    • Identify promising individuals within the company who have the capacity to take on management responsibility. Provide them with the training to assume managerial roles and to handle direct reports.
    • If the talent is lacking in some areas, hire managers to oversee these areas.
  • The phone is the #1 problem – interruptions to deal with customer issues.
    • Hire an assistant to manage incoming calls and to transfer these calls to the appropriate department.
    • Learn to say no. For example, if an opportunity requires the CEO to be off-site to evaluate and estimate a project, that individual could not answer the phone in the office. Similarly, it is necessary to carve out concentrated time for strategic and critical tasks when in the office.
    • Explain to the team the challenge, and the benefits of spending uninterrupted time each day working on strategic direction. These benefits include additional growth and opportunity for both the company and employees.
    • Establish an official time – during regular hours – that the CEO is not available to respond to calls or other immediate needs. During these times, have an assistant direct these requests to the appropriate department or schedule time later in the day to handle an issue.
  • Any executive in a Fortune 500 company plans time for planning and other essential work when they cannot be interrupted. Working without interruptions is essential to efficient, high-quality work.

[like]

How Do You Handle a Difficult Employee? Five Observations

Situation: A CEO is pondering how to handle a difficult employee. This individual has brought in good business but is never satisfied with his level of pay – though he is highly paid. While he is good at bringing in new accounts, he doesn’t make the effort to grow them over time. How do you handle a difficult employee?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It is necessary to establish a mutual understanding with the employee that no matter the level of pay, the employee will think that it is too little. This reframes the discussion because it establishes that there is no win by paying the individual more. The unspoken part is “why bother?”
    • Given this reality, the maximum level of pay for the employee is $X.
    • Note that there is no negotiating power until once this is said it is acceptable to let the employee walk away.
  • The CEO feels indebted to this individual because he has brought the company many new accounts. He is a good hunter. But the task now is not to hunt but to cultivate and grow the opportunities that that the company has in hand.
    • The issue is that this individual doesn’t build relationships that will grow business in his accounts.
    • He has done well for the company. The company has rewarded him handsomely. However, now a different talent is needed.
  • What’s the best alternative for action, and how is this communicated to the staff?
    • Do not lay this individual off – terminate him for cause.
    • This individual has repeatedly been asked to act as a team member, but he has steadfastly refused to do this.
    • His attitude, while good for his own efforts, is bad for the company and is clearly counter to the desired culture.
    • He is better off in a situation that aligns with his talents and style.
  • Terminating this individual for cause sends a critical message to the rest of the company – culture is important. You are determined to establish a healthy culture even it if means eliminating your best performer.
    • To those who ask, answer that this individual was treated fairly. Clear expectations were established, and ample opportunity was given to be a part of the culture that you are establishing.
    • Ultimately, the culture that you seek to establish – one that is good for the whole team, not just for star performers – was not right for this individual.
  • Use this situation to relaunch a campaign to build a company culture of collaboration and best practice development between teams. With the elimination of this individual there may be new enthusiasm around this initiative.

[like]

How Do You Handle Open Issues from a Sale Agreement? Three Thoughts

Situation: A CEO has closed the sale of a significant company property. Due diligence was completed and was satisfactory, but the purchaser now wants to renegotiate the price. The CEO is concerned that if she yields on the price, the buyer will come up with additional changes that will further disadvantage the sale. How do you handle open issues from a sale agreement?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One member had a similar issue following the sale of a previous company. The decision was that the price at the time of close was the price. The buyer had full opportunity to perform due diligence which would have uncovered any open issues. Condition at time of sale is “buyer beware,” which is why they were allowed a full due diligence.
  • The sale was “as is” including assumption of current debt on the property. It appears that the advantages to the buyer that are anticipated through the purchase will more than offset the impact of the existing debt. As a result, the buyer is, on balance, better off than they had anticipated. Thus, there is no need to yield on price.
  • On the timing of events that may not occur – an indirect cost audit by the company’s prime agency should this be necessary – there is a question of the financial impact to the company.
    • There is a default date on the final payment that could be held up by the negotiation, but the impact is not significant to the company.
    • Otherwise, the company’s interests are covered by the sale agreement.

[like]

How Do You Create a Succession Plan? Three Points

Situation: A CEO, planning for his future, wants to create a succession plan. Done correctly, this should also promote the growth of the company until it is time for him to retire. The challenge is that the company is highly decentralized, and a clear successor has yet to be identified. How do you create a succession plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Tie succession planning to growth. This will benefit the company whether the CEO’s retirement is in the planning horizon or the more distant future.
    • Consider geographic transfers to provide growth opportunity for key managers and to proliferate the success of highly successful regions into less successful regions.
    • Develop a leadership generation engine. Consider GE as a model for this as noted in Jim Collins’s books Good to Great and its predecessor, Built to Last. GE’s success is a model for building long-lasting value substantially beyond the current value of the company.
    • Create a vision of what the company could be and the organization chart to fulfill this vision. This will guide and support the two points, above.
  • As new talent is acquired, conduct this with an eye to growth.
    • As the company identifies and hires top prospects, conduct the hiring process to fill the organization chart of the future company that is envisioned.
    • Look at outside hires for growth positions to complement home grown talent.
    • If business or company acquisitions are being considered, be aware that the leadership of the acquired business or company and its top talent may depart. Include retention clauses and incentives in any acquisition contract.
  • This effort must be approached as a long-term development process – it does not happen through quick-fixes but through a commitment to excellence in acquiring and developing talent.

[like]

How Do You Grow Knowledge Workers into Servant Leaders? Three Methods

Situation: A company’s staff is made up primarily of knowledge workers. These are highly skilled individuals who excel in their roles. The CEO wishes to shift their focus to servant leadership – where the focus is the growth and development of the company. How do you grow knowledge workers into servant leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One option is to create a different set of incentives. Offering key managers the option to invest in and hold shares in the company will change their perspective. This, in turn, can change their behavior because servant leadership will improve company performance and the value of their shares.
  • Another option, used by Accenture and many Fortune 500s, is to hire a lot of the best and brightest individuals that they can find out of college and see who rises to the top.
    • The ratio in large firms is generally 15 hires to produce 1 high performer. Another CEO at the table is now shifting to this model at his company.
    • Create an entry level position for recent graduates that will allow for this sifting without disrupting the company’s culture.
    • Speed identification and retention of the best talent through annual evaluations of the company’s talent. This includes ratings by employees’ supervisors of both how the individual is doing and their ultimate potential within the company.
    • Be aware of the downsides to this model. One is that the two groups that tend to leave of their own accord are the best and the worst employees.
  • A third option is to create two career tracks within the Company.
    • One track is upwardly mobile. This is the track that identifies, develops and grooms future servant leaders.
    • The other track is a specialty track, which can produce servant leaders along a different dimension – breadth of experience and expertise in key skills of value to the firm.
    • This second track also allows for growth, characterized by levels of title, salary and recognition that reward the acquisition and perfection of skills in key disciplines.
    • Several “kinder, gentler” environments such as 3M have used parallel tracks with great success.

[like]

How Do You Focus on Doing Things Right? Seven Recommendations

Situation: A CEO is concerned that her company is not as efficient or effective as it could be. Of the key activities where the company is focused, few have any obvious connection to the customer or the customers’ needs. How do you focus on doing things right?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Create a set of cost graphs to parallel the company’s revenue graphs. If these are put side by side, does it indicate that the company is doing some things that add relatively low value and profit? What happens if resources are shifted away from less valuable activity?
  • Concentrate resources on doing one profitable thing well. Become best in class at this one thing. This may both increase the value of the firm and help to focus future development.
  • Bring in a senior level marketing research person or marketing manager with marketing research experience to determine what the customer wants, how should the company compete, and what current customers may be willing to pay for its software.
  • Strengthen the primary product – it represents 90% of sales. This is where the company has the best understanding of both its customers and the market. Look at what it takes to become enterprise wide with the company’s largest customers. Expand vertical capabilities and build $1 million accounts to $5 million a year.
  • The company already has a diverse group of clients, many of whom are huge.
    • How deep is the company in each of these clients? It may be easier and less expensive from a sales standpoint to go deeper into these clients than to bring on new clients.
    • Look for ways to make current $1 million clients $5 million clients by selling what the company currently sell to more of their divisions and locations.
    • The key to executing this strategy is to listen closely to what clients’ needs are and adjust or customize the offering to better meet their needs.
  • Focus on solutions and reduce the cost of solution implementation. Consider becoming more vertical in one key implementation and become the best at that.
  • Create a relevant framework for the company’s strategy. For what purpose is it necessary to do the right thing? If the purpose is to exit in 2 to 3 years, this yields a very different strategy than if the objective to dominate the company’s market in a 5 to10 year period.

[like]

How Do You Manage Conflicts of Interest? Four Tactics

Situation: A service company was acquired by a larger company. There are limited operational crossovers between the two, but where conflicts of interest arise the acquirer seems uninterested in addressing these. How do you manage conflicts of interest?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Within the company it is necessary to clarify what can be done autonomously and what must be done with the acquirer’s support.
    • Where the company sees issues it can develop a recommended set of actions that will avoid pain – particularly where its systems are more developed than those of the acquirer.
  • Reconstruct the acquirer’s motivations for the acquisition.
    • Was their objective synergy or portfolio diversification? If it was a synergy play, then more structure and integration are needed.
    • From observed behavior, it looks more like it was a portfolio diversification strategy. In this case they will expect the company to continue to perform as a quasi-independent structure, but under their umbrella.
    • Given this, where do possible market synergies between the companies exist? Look for these and develop mutually beneficial alternatives.
  • The CEO feels a responsibility to his company’s staff, assisting them to be more comfortable within the current situation.
    • If the analysis of the acquirer’s motivations rings true, then share this with the company’s staff. If this is the case then they should not be seeking a lead from the acquirer but should concentrate on maintaining what company has done well over the years.
  • What options are available for CEO?
    • It is possible to maintain status quo. The company is getting new business and performing well.
    • On the other hand, if the CEO is acting in the leadership role with decreasing focus and interest, this will not bode well for the organization or staff.
    • In the latter case, set a timeline and date for departure. This can be some time out but should be comfortable for the CEO.
    • Communicate this timeline to acquirer and when the time is right offer to help look for a successor.

[like]

When Should You Bring in External Resources? Four Suggestions

Situation: A company provides market research, technical assistance, and related services for clients. It receives most of its work from proposals. Both writing successful proposals and carrying out the work of accepted proposals are critical capabilities. Should they bring in external resources to increase the number of proposals submitted? Where should these resources be focused?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Identify the most critical tasks that contributed to proposals that have been awarded.
    • Determine, between writing and editing, which tasks are most critical. Focus internal resources on these tasks and seek outside resources to assist with the less critical tasks.
    • Provide incentives to those who write grants that are awarded.
  • What portions of the proposals could be written using external resources?
    • Background information, including corporate history, tends to be repetitive between proposals. However, this material is also difficult for an outsider to master.
    • One option is to secure outside resources that will commit to the company for a long time. These resources would have the time to learn and master the historical data.
    • Another option is to use the company’s database to store and code historical data. These data could then be managed by a less expensive internal resource and collected with appropriate filters for each new proposal that arises.
  • Codify the repetitive source material in a database. Secure software that makes it easy to filter and recall selected data for the writers of new proposals.
  • An alternative to using outside resources is to develop an internal coordinator who is master of this database and who is responsible for gathering appropriately filtered data to support the efforts of the company’s proposal writers.
    • By taking care of this portion of the proposal writing task, it will be easier to find enthusiastic project leaders to take on the more creative aspects of new proposals.

[like]