Tag Archives: Management

How Do You Build Consistency and Reliability as You Scale Up? Three Keys

Interview with Greg Hartwell, CEO and Managing Director, Homecare California, Inc.

Situation: Fast growing companies find it difficult to manage consistency and reliability of service as they scale to their next level of growth. They need to systematize what works and leverage technology to enjoy the benefits of scale. How do you build consistency and reliability as you scale up?

Advice from Greg Hartwell:

  • Invest time and effort to build an experienced management team. As a small company building a new service delivery model, it is helpful for the founders to know all roles so that you have a sense of what’s needed for each role.
    • Be open to hiring people from other industries. This brings a fresh perspective and broadens the pool of talent. There’s value in industry experience, but attitude and cultural fit are key.
    • The split between tactical and strategic skills is 80 / 20. Basic skills are necessary, but specialized knowledge can be learned.
  • Institutionalize how you recruit, screen, hire, train and retain. How do you do it like Disney – attracting and hiring the best of the best?
    • Know your market and the personality of those who will excel. This greatly simplifies the screening process.
    • Work hard on training. Our customer-focus starts with our employees. We complement natural talent with training that focuses on soft skills, and on consistency and reliability of service.
    • Find great advisors who can help build a training and retention system that works for you.
    • Minimize turnover by compensating people well, and treating them even better. Build a culture of recognition and shared experience that emphasizes the importance of the team and its members.
  • Embrace technology which enhances your ability to scale.
    • Don’t wait for something bad to happen and then rush to fix it. Anticipate and prevent mishaps.
    • Leverage communication technologies to tighten the bond between client and provider agency. Provide added services that are valuable and affordable.
    • Hand-held device technology is developing rapidly. Leverage this to increase consistency and reliability of service, enhance case reporting, reduce human error, reduce the ratio of supervisors to caregivers, and increase productivity. Be at the head of your industry class!

You can contact Greg Hartwell at [email protected], www.homecare-california.com

Key Words: Fast, Growth, Consistency, Reliability, System, Technology, Benefit, Management, Requirement, Talent, Recruit, Hire, Train

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How Do You Add a Layer of Management? Five Suggestions

Situation: A company has been seeking additional engineers. Unexpectedly, three excellent candidates independently approached the company seeking employment. This opens the door to expand the department and also to create an additional layer of management consistent with the company’s growth objectives. Currently, in this small company all engineers report directly to the CEO. What are best practices adding a layer of management to the company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Remember that aspiration does not equal talent. There is a big difference between good individual contributors and good managers. The best predictor of managerial success is past successful experience.
  • You have a number of senior engineers who have been with you for a long time. Have any expressed an interest in management responsibility? Do any of them have a track record successfully managing teams? Similarly, evaluate your new candidates both in terms of both their ability to contribute as engineers and their prior management experience.
  • If you hire one or more of the candidates, start them at the senior engineer level. Let the company and the rest of your engineering team get used to them and observe the quality of their contribution.
  • Once you are ready to create a new level of management, make this an open process. Announce your plans to the engineering team, and ask them to approach you individually if they are interested. See who steps up.
  • When the time comes to make the promotion, how do you communicate this to the group?
    • If you’ve used an open process to evaluate one or more candidates for management, the group will already be prepared when you announce the new structure and promotion.
    • An important part of the message is that the company is growing and that there will be ongoing opportunities for talented engineers to earn promotions to management.
  • For those interested, start with small steps as leads in team projects. Who if effective at guiding their team? Who is a positive source of energy for the team? Who is helpful and goes above and beyond for other team members and for customers? How do they respond to team obstacles? Observe and coach them along the way.

Key Words: Engineer, HR, Management, Candidate, Aspiration, Talent, Individual Contributor, Manager, Experience, Success, Involve, Time, Announce, Process, Communication, Coach

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Micromanage – Me? Four Observations

Situation: The CEO is concerned about the performance of both the company and individual employees. The employees are good, but there are many minor details of day-to-day operation that the CEO feels are important. How involved should the CEO be in the details of the business?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The answer to this question depends on you.
    • What is your own priority on the use of you time?
    • How much do you want to be involved?
    • How confident are you in the people whom you’ve hired?
    • Are you comfortable delegating?
    • Do you want to stay small or scale and grow?
  • The good and bad of involving yourself in details:
    • The Good Side – communicates that you are willing to roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to get the job done.
    • The Bad Side – don’t do your employees’ jobs for them.
      • This is demotivating and communicates a lack of trust in their abilities.
      • If the workload is so demanding and the benefit so great, then secure additional resources to enable employees to get the job done themselves.
  • More broadly, remember the lesson from many business gurus – you increase the value of your company by getting the “U” out of your bUsiness. You may enjoy the detail of the business. However, do not let this interfere with your long term objective of having others doing the “doing” while you mature your role as manager and leader.

Key Words: Manage, Leadership, Delegation, Confidence, Growth  [like]