Situation: The CEO is moving a key employee from head of engineering to a more customer development focus. To support this, she will have to bring in or promote another employee to fill the position of leader/supervisor/manager of the engineering group. The CEO seeks advice on the best way to approach finding a replacement for this key job. How do you replace a key position?
Advice from the CEOs:
• First, it is necessary to develop a timeline for finding and transitioning the replacement. Realistically, count on 6 months to find a replacement and transition the responsibilities to a new person.
• Keep in mind that anybody you find or promote will be different from the individual who currently occupies the position, and will not handle their new responsibilities the same way as the current individual. Their motivation and their approach to their new responsibilities will be different, at least at the outset, and they will not handle their responsibilities the same way that the current individual does.
• Seek an individual, either currently within the company or an outside hire with strengths that, over time, will add significant value to the organization. Prepare for this by brainstorming and developing a profile of the ideal candidate.
• If you have qualified candidates, the ideal person will come from within the organization. This has the added advantage of demonstrating to other employees that they, also, may become candidates for future positions to grow both their skills and income.
Tag Archives: Motivation
Why Do We Keep Trying to Grow? Three Thoughts
Situation: A CEO is looking at the strategic plan of her company. They are planning for growth but a question arises – what is the balance between work for the sake of the work and work for the reward that it brings? What are the thoughts of the other CEOs around the table? Why do we keep trying to grow?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Step back and ask – what do I seek? Do the same with the members of the leadership team – what do we seek?
• Define what you want and what enough is. There is always the question of whether when reaching the goal will it be enough? Work with your team to discuss and seek a consensus on what their objectives are both for themselves and the company. You may be surprised at what this discussion yields. Two books may help you to deal with this question: The Gap by Dan Sullivan which deals with growth, motivation and satisfaction and Small Giants by Bo Burlingame of Inc Magazine which tells the story of a number of companies that decided that growth is defined by the impact that they have on their employees and communities as opposed to growth in revenue or profits.
• Repeat this discussion with the team at least annually. Expectations develop and change over time. An annual review of plans and opportunities empowers the team to make interesting and valuable contributions.
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How Do You Navigate Communication Style Differences? Four Points
Situation: A CEO seeks advice on how other CEOs work with employees who have significantly different styles of communication. He suspects that this is a source of conflict between employees and wants to reduce that conflict. How do you encourage employees to be more open and receptive to other employees? How do you navigate communication style differences?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Conduct regular personnel reviews. In reviews work with the individual to develop personal growth plans in addition to professional development objectives.
- It may be necessary to create enough stress in an interview situation to prompt the real personality to show.
- Recognize that sometimes an employee who meets professional goals can still be a poor fit for the team. This can impact other, productive team members. Don’t be afraid to fire a bad hire.
- How much can you expect to mold another person’s communication style?
- There must be personal motivation to change – the impetus must come from within.
- To prompt the conversation acknowledge that something isn’t working – or isn’t as effective as expected.
- Communicate to the individual that the consequences of not changing are potentially worse than the effort to change.
- Breed adaptive communication skills throughout the organization.
- Use an assessment tool to start the conversation and align tasks.
- In dealing with an individual who is confrontational, probe to determine what is motivating the individual’s question or position on an issue. Does the individual genuinely need additional information or are they using a wall of questions as a roadblock to moving on?
- Work with the individual to organize their answers or input into a plan.
- Communicate values and goals as they pertain to individual contribution and appreciate the impact of different departments’ actions on each other.
- Be flexible – some people need more definition and reinforcement than others.
- Understand that changes and transitions in the company’s focus can shift roles.
- Review each individual’s role periodically to insure that it fits the company vision. This can increase the individual’s understanding of how they are contributing to moving the company forward.
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How Do You Negotiate a Merger? Eleven Points
Situation: A company is considering a merger with a smaller company. What are the important considerations to take into account in considering and negotiating a possible merger? How do you negotiate a merger?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Look for synergies between the companies. During the negotiation, emphasize these and the mutual benefit available to both companies.
- In a merger between a larger and smaller company look for the key motivations of each party. What does the smaller company have that the larger company wants? How much is that worth to them? Make a list.
- Consider combining vs. merging. An alliance can be mutually beneficial while allowing both companies to retain independent ownership.
- Look at earn out options in a purchase scenario. What are the possible terms and the financial implications of these?
- Beware of the distraction that a merger will present to current day-to-day operations.
- Identify other parties with whom mergers are possible. Why is the target partner better?
- Partner prior to the merger – how do the two companies play together in the sand box? This can reveal cultural differences and differences in focus that will impact the value of the merger.
- Consider an LLP option – a third Company that is the owner of the two merged companies. This may present tax and other advantages.
- Look at Product vs. Service
- Product is always worth something.
- When service stops, it is worth nothing.
- Key players must work together well or the service evaporates.
- Never assume what the other party’s interests are. Make sure that both interests and priorities are discussed and evaluated during discussions between the parties.
- Ask clarifying questions anytime a topic is raised that requires additional understanding.
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How Do You Align Company Culture? Three Approaches
Situation: A company purchased another company one year ago. While the two organizations complement each other in terms of market coverage, their cultures differ. What are the key cultural issues that the CEO should consider as they work to bring the two companies into deeper alignment? How do you align company culture?
Advice from the CEOs:
- What are the differences between the cultures of the two companies?
- The purchasing company’s culture is characterized as tech-savvy. They work easily across time zones; have high team autonomy; and pool back-office responsibilities and the associated expenses for more consistent management across projects. While their overall revenue is lower, they have higher revenue per revenue-producing employee.
- The acquired company’s culture is not tech-savvy. They make little use of email or technology; have little long-distance communication or experience working across time zones; a top-down decision and management structure; and expenses are managed at the project level with little consistency in expense handling between projects. They have no HR function.
- Look at the core values that drive each company. Compare and contrast these.
- Are there complementary strengths on which to build synergy?
- Are gaps in one company complemented by strengths in the other?
- Usually, the acquiring company has to opportunity to dictate the culture of the combination. With shrewd positioning, strengths of the acquired company can provide benefits to the combination.
- Perform a values analysis of the two companies and look for opportunities to leverage value strengths across the two companies.
- Look for an informal opportunity to have a conversation with the principles of both companies about their motivations for agreeing to the acquisition. There are two basic options:
- Integration and growth or diversification and investment.
- If the purchase was for integration and growth, then the acquirer will likely want to instill their values into the acquired company.
- If the purchase was for diversification and investment, then the acquirer may be willing to allow the acquired company considerable autonomy. However, strategies and plans should be probed to provide clarification.
- Understanding these factors will help to determine which values and strengths of each company to combine into a unified culture.
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How Do You Hire and Retain the Right People? Four Suggestions
Situation: A CEO is concerned about employee turnover, particularly among promising younger employees. He doesn’t know whether these employees are different from past employees, or whether it is a function of the current economy and recovery. They look like a good fit during interviews and appear to fit well with the company when they come onboard. Yet, after a few weeks or months they leave. How do you hire and retain the right people?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Ask other companies in your area whether they are experiencing the same phenomena, and what they are doing about this. Are their experiences similar? Why do they think this is happening? Have they developed successful strategies to stem the resignations?
- Conduct follow-up interviews 3 months after the employees leave. Use an independent party – or at least a neutral party within the company – to conduct the post-departure interview. While there may be a variety of reasons why individuals leave, are there similar themes in their motivations?
- Are employees being treated similarly to the way that Margery Mayer and others have discussed treating customers – are they being heard?
- Ask and listen to their true motivations – perhaps they value the opportunity to take an extended vacation for a life experience more than they value a raise. Intel and other companies offer their employees an extended sabbatical after a certain number of years of service. The employee does with this time what he or she wants.
- Host informal beer and pizza sessions with employee groups. Keep the mood relaxed. Let them open up and complain if they so wish. It’s far better to let them air these feelings with the CEO than as buzz within the office – particularly if the see that they are being heard.
- It is important to follow up and respond to what is heard. Employees appreciate the opportunity to be open and honest, but only if they sense that their input is producing the changes that they desire.
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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.
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How Do You Motivate a High-potential Individual? Five Points
Situation: A CEO has a high-potential manager who heads a remote office of the company. This individual seems most comfortable with hands-on work, but the CEO believes that she has the talent to grow into a superb manager with broader responsibility within the company. How do you motivate a high-potential individual?
Advice from the CEOs:
- The key is the motivation and ambition of the individual. Without this the individual will not make a successful move in the direction that is sought. Understand and respect her goals and interests.
- Two books by William Ury may help: Getting to Yes and Getting Past No.
- The potential danger is the Peter Principle – that the individual will get promoted to their level of incompetence.
- Does this individual have a talented subordinate who could take on additional responsibility – to back-fill for her as she takes on new responsibilities?
- The process of training an individual like this will become an important growth exercise for her as a manager.
- If the individual agrees that she wants more responsibility, look for a mentor for her, or hire a trainer to work with her to facilitate the process.
- If she is amenable to the move that the CEO envisions, establish written SMART objectives to guide her development and assumption of new responsibilities. This will give her a road map to success.
- SMART Objectives – Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-bound
- If she prefers her current track and responsibilities to the vision that the CEO has for her, the CEO may want to develop her subordinate to fill the desired role.
- There are many cases in which a talented subordinate has surpassed not just one but many of their supervisors.
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How Do You Improve Internal Processes and Procedures? Five Approaches
Situation: A CEO’s company has experienced margin erosion due to designs that did not transfer well to manufacturing, and inefficiencies in the transfer process between design and manufacturing engineering. He wants to transform the culture without losing technical performance while meeting cost targets and delivery timelines. How do you improve internal processes and procedures?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Reinventing the culture of a workforce is an organizational design challenge.
- The heart of the challenge is understanding the motivations and desires of the individuals involved – particularly the natural leaders within the groups.
- Learn this is by speaking with them one-on-one, either as the CEO, or through individuals with whom they will be open and trusting.
- Once their emotional drivers are understood, design accountability and incentive solutions that will align their personal reliability and accountability drivers with their emotional drivers.
- Tailor the language of communication with the organization so that it responds to the emotional triggers discovered during the 1-on-1s. For example, if there is a negative reaction to sales within the engineering teams, use a different term like client development.
- Expose the designers to the “hot seat” that gets created when their designs produce manufacturing challenges. The objective is for the designer to see the manufacturing group as their “customer.”
- Involve manufacturing engineering in design architecture meetings. Do this early in the process so that they can communicate the framework and constraints under which manufacturing occurs and suggest options that will ease manufacturability.
- Shift from individual to team recognition on projects. Instead of recognizing the contributions of the design component or the manufacturing component, recognize the contributions of the team of design and manufacturing engineers that produced a project on time, on budget, with good early reliability.
- To kick off the new process:
- Identify some of the waste targets.
- Involve individuals who are known to be early adopters.
- Have them look at the problem, develop and implement a solution.
- Deliver ample recognition/rewards to these individuals.
- Next use these people to mentor the next level of 2nd
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How Much Do You Share with a Potential Acquirer? Nine Points
Situation: A company has been approached by a larger company that may be interested in acquiring them. The prospective acquirer is a current customer. Absent an extraordinary offer, the company isn’t interested in selling. Nevertheless, a conversation could be valuable. How much information about the company should the CEO share now? How much do you share with a potential acquirer?
Advice from the CEOs:
- The key term here is potential. At this point, there is no commitment, and you really don’t know the other company’s motivation. As you start this process, don’t share confidential details about your plans or prospects, or your pipeline. Just broad information. If things get serious, slowly open the kimono.
- Make sure that you have an NDA in place covering anything that they ask you to disclose for this possible transaction.
- Given your current situation, a standard offer probably won’t be appealing, so be open to a creative option.
- Decide ahead of time what your price is. If they are in the ball park, keep talking.
- For example, Say you want $XX. Would you be attracted to 50% of that now, 50% later? Under what terms?
- Put a low valve on future payouts, particularly if you are not in a position to call the shots.
- Be open and creative. You never know what can happen. You could sell to them now at the right price. Then, if the acquisition doesn’t work out, buy the company back in 2-3 years at a discount!
- If you get into higher level negotiations, employee retention will be critical. Make provision for this as part of the deal.
- Hire a disinterested professional negotiator you who you can trust.
- If things get serious, bring in an investment broker to assist. It will cost you 5% but they are helpful in the negotiation and could bring in competing suitors to up the ante.
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