Tag Archives: Culture

Can do You Change Culture Without Losing Key People? Five Ideas

Interview with Cameron Tuck, CEO, ImperfectCEO

Situation: A mid-sized Company is more than three decades old. The challenges are modernizing operations and updating company culture to keep pace with customer expectations. They also need to diversify into new growth markets. Can they change the culture of the company without losing key people?

Advice:

  • Let people know that you value them. Consistently express your appreciation for what they do for the company, and don’t blame them for not being perfect. For them to be willing to grow as company culture changes, they need to feel safe – to understand that a change in culture does not mean the loss of their job.
  • Give employees consistent face time. Ask questions and seek their solutions instead of proposing your own. Involve them through collaboration. Tolerate the fact that their solutions won’t be exactly like yours.
  • Pick your battles. Select what you want to change and conserve your emotional capital. Think about what’s important and what’s not before you intervene. Let minor issues slide as long as they don’t impair schedules or performance.
  • Maintain an open door to all levels of the company. However, when an employee comes in with an issue or complaint, defer judgment to their manager. Never undercut your managers.
  • Your most important strengths will be patience and understanding. Stay mindful that change can be threatening, particularly if employees find it hard to see the big picture. Keep your themes and messages simple and repeat them as often as necessary to keep everyone focused.

You can contact Cameron Tuck at imperfectceo@gmail.com

Key Words: Culture, Modernize, Change, Collaboration, Delegation, Messaging  [like]

How do we Get our Doer/Sellers to Sell? Four Recommendations

Situation: The Company has a geographical sales and service organization. Much of the sales effort comes from the consulting reputation of the managing director of each geographical unit, but he directors’ core values usually favor consulting over meeting sales plans. How do we get these directors to meet sales goals?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Experience turning around a consulting organization with no sales culture:
    • Ours was a 5-year process. It starts with a leader who sells successfully and teaches by example.
    • As we made the transition, we selected new hires for sales skills to compliment their consulting skills. This facilitated our transition to a strong sales culture.
  • You need to commit to build a sales culture.
    • Moving to an account manager team versus an engineering/professional team was a big shift. It takes time and patience.
    • Hire effective sales people to jump-start the process. Most of the successful seller/doers will be new hires.
    • Revise your reward and recognition structure around your objectives.
    • Make rainmakers your best paid people. This will bring others out of the woodwork.
  • Bias sales compensation for doer/sellers toward variable compensation. Allow successful individuals to make over $200K per year.
    • Consider a 3-year phase-in by not increasing base pay through raises. More than make up the difference in available variable pay. Directors will now have more incentive to hit their sales numbers.
  • This is a difficult change in both sales leadership and culture. You may have to make significant leadership changes.

Key Words: Sales, Compensation, Core Values, Consulting, Goals, Reward, Incentive, Transition, Hiring, Culture  [like]

We Only Want A-Players – But Do They Want Us? – Five Strategies

Situation: An early stage company will staff-up over the next year. In the past the CEO has recruited individuals with big company experience and solid resumes, only to find that they had difficulty transitioning to the hands-on responsibility of a small company. How do you find candidates who are highly experienced but who can also excel in a small company environment?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The best candidates are not in the job-search pool. They are currently working but open to a change. Some will wish to return to a more hands-on situation.
  • Let people know that you are looking for “the best” and have a great opportunity. Create some buzz.
    • Go to your network ask “who do you know?” Don’t be shy!
  • Look for achievers – with proven performance in companies of the size that you plan to be in 12-18 months. Check their references carefully.
  • What can we do now, while we seek the right people?
    • Use contractors and consultants. These people are more entrepreneurial, self-starting, and self-accountable. Monitor their work. If they are good, add them to your team as permanent employees.
    • Develop a milestone-based personnel plan as part of your business plan:
      • When we hit Milestone A, we will need an operations manager.
      • When we hit Milestone B, we will need channel or market development expertise.
    • Conduct case studies of how other companies in your or similar spaces have facilitated their scale-ups. What worked? What didn’t? Why?

Key Words: Candidates, Recruiting, Fit, Culture, Start-up, Achievers, Performance  [like]