Tag Archives: Objective

How Do You Manage Long-Term Members of the Team? Three Strategies

Situation: A company has a team that built their critical systems some time ago. The CEO is upgrading skills and adding new team members to update these systems to current technology. The challenge is that the original team members don’t see the need to update the company’s systems.  How does the CEO help them to see the benefit of upgrades? How do you manage long-term members of the team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Given the company’s values of loyalty between company and employees, it’s not possible to just shoot these people. Given them the opportunity to remain valuable to the company. Be patient
  • If there is friction between the employees who have been with the company for a long time and the newcomers, make them work things out. Don’t try to fix it.
    • Be public about company and team objectives, expectations and timelines. Explain where and why the company is going and the potential benefit to them and to the company.
    • It will be messy at first. There is risk. However, these are mature individuals and the new people come in with a great deal of experience, so this may mitigate the risk.
    • As necessary, work one-on-one with individuals. Make it clear what is and is not acceptable behavior; for example, sniping at each other and spreading discontent.
    • Where obvious conflict occurs, have the individuals involved go talk it out over a beer. Let them know that they are expected to be able to handle and resolve their differences.
    • Don’t let individuals become destructive. If necessary, put individual long-termers in roles that are not obstructive to new initiatives.
  • Some long-termers may leave on their own and solve the problem. It will become obvious who they are.

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How Do You Increase a Team’s “Voltage”? Three Suggestions

Situation: A CEO is concerned that his team feels like it has lost energy. This could be temporary or seasonal, but he feels that something needs to be done to increase the excitement or “voltage” of the team and workplace. What have others done in a similar situation. How do you increase a team’s “voltage”?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Anoint a “Champion of Fun.”
    • The objective is to recreate the excitement and joy that has been present in the company in the past. The individual assigned should be someone who has frequently or consistently demonstrated high energy and enthusiasm.
    • The person should be an employee – not management.
    • This could be two people who focus on different things – one for small, day to day activities, and one for big events, like a Habitat for Humanity Day.
  • Create a sense that employees have some control over their environment. This adds energy.
    • Circulate an Office Depot catalogue and give each employee a modest budget that they can spend to dress up their work space.
    • This has an amazing impact on the pride that they feel in their work space.
  • Bring in lunch as a surprise a couple of times a month. This is for getting reacquainted, not for business discussions during lunch.
    • The objective is to build the team camaraderie, and to enhance communication and collaboration among the team.

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How Do You Handle Underperforming Employees? Four Points

Situation: A CEO has several employees who report to a single manager but who are not performing to expectations. The manager is seeking the CEO’s assistance. When faced with a similar issue in the past, the CEO has turned up the pressure on an individual until he or she decided to leave on their own. Is this the best option? How can she resolve this situation and, at the same time, improve company morale? How do you handle underperforming employees?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Letting underperformers go sends a positive message to the rest of the team. It reinforces the message that a high level of performance is expected, and that a low performer won’t be allowed to penalize the overall performance of a team.
  • There is a serious downside to just turning up pressure until an individual leaves.
    • Even low performers usually have friends among the staff.
    • Turning up the pressure on an individual without telling them why creates an impression of unfairness. “Why is Joe being asked to do all of this – particularly when it doesn’t look like he can handle the work?”
    • The most serious downside is that a high performer becomes fearful that the company may have the same “unfair” expectations of him.
  • It is healthier to sit down with an underperformer and face the problem. This also reduces exposure to charges of discrimination.
    • Plan a meeting with the manager and each of the under-performing employees. In each meeting, tell the individual that specific areas of their performance are not up to company standards. Provide objective, measurable examples. Listen to the individual’s reaction.
    • Work with the manager to develop a program with each individual to assess whether they are willing to improve their performance over a specified time frame. Inform them that there will be a decision as to whether they will remain on the team at the end of the time period. Again, listen to their reaction.
    • If an individual does not respond positively and improve performance, it will be necessary to fire them. However, they have received fair warning and a fair chance to demonstrate that they can produce the expected performance.
    • If an individual isn’t interested in performing to company standards, the assessment period gives them time to look for another job.
  • Because these individuals report to their manager, coach the manager on the process outlined above and have her oversee the outcome. Help the manager to make a call after a period as determined with the manager.
    • Continue to coach and support her during this process.
    • Make it clear to the manager’s team that she is in charge of this process.

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How Do You Maintain a Culture Focused on Quality? Five Points

Situation: Quality is a CEO’s #1 objective for his company. As the company has grown and processes have become more complex with more people involved, consistent quality is becoming an issue. The CEO wants to refocus and reestablish a quality culture to support future growth. What have others done to increase the quality of their product or service? How do you maintain a culture focused on quality?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Trust is a company’s most important commodity. This trumps financial exposure. In case described, the client trusts the company to produce and deliver a quality service upon which they can rely.
  • Go all of the way back into system design – or how any particular product system is set up.
    • Assemble a diverse group to review both the company’s deliverables and the system inputs.
    • Brainstorm everything that can break.
    • Prioritize the list based on potential exposure to the company.
    • Do a deep-dive analysis of the top 5 or 10 exposure areas.
    • Reprioritize after the deep dive has been completed.
    • Fix all issues identified in order of exposure.
    • Repeat the exercise periodically to assure that quality is maintained.
  • Empower and reward anyone who develops improvements in quality control.
  • Shield the company from any exposure over which it has no control. This can be accomplished through language in the company’s service agreements, and through language covering service deliverables.
  • Once the company has shielded itself from an exposure, set up flags in the monitoring systems that will alert the company of events or situations that will impact clients. This allows the company to inform clients of situations that may impact them without making recommendations as to how the client should handle the situation.

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How Do You Encourage Others to Take the Initiative? Five Points

Situation: A CEO has a challenge getting employees to take initiative in areas that she wants to delegate. Part of the challenge is that she needs to “let go” and tends to do too much checking in. She is concerned that this results in employees’ hesitation to demonstrate the initiative that she desires. How do you encourage others to take the initiative?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Continual checking-in alters the “urgency.” It feels more like a lack of confidence in the individual’s ability to complete the task to specifications and on schedule.
  • Work to establish more trust. Do this incrementally – start with less urgent / important responsibilities or tasks and move toward more urgent / important ones.
  • Determine boundaries and clearly establish deliverables.
    • Write the objective down ahead of time – as well as how much information to give them.
    • Ask yourself: Is this providing “just enough” information to guide them without micromanaging or over specifying the solution?
  • Is an objective being set, or are you trying to teach a methodology to reach the objective?
    • Unless the methodology is critical, focus on the objective and let them determine the methodology.
    • Once the objective is completed review and learn from them how it worked. Ask how they prefer to complete the objective so that you can provide the appropriate level of guidance in the future.
  • Delegating takes more time than doing it yourself.
    • Employees will complete a task differently than you will. As long as an acceptable result is achieved, be tolerant that the method or tone is different. They may be coming up with a better way!

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How Do You Balance Scalable Growth with Quality Service? Five Thoughts

Situation: A CEO wants to determine whether and to what extent his company’s service model is scalable. He wants to determine whether it is possible to add additional clients by adjusting the ratio of clients to staff. The tricky part is determining whether the company can increase the client to staff ratio while minimizing the impact on client service. This is critical because client service is the company’s “secret sauce”. How do you balance scalable growth with quality service?

  • Start by profiling the current client base from high to low maintenance. For example, set up a grid with axes of sophistication and frequency of desired contact as follows:
    • A – unsophisticated and desire frequent contact
    • B – sophisticated and desire frequent contact
    • C – unsophisticated and desire infrequent contact
    • D – sophisticated and desire infrequent contact
  • Analyze the client base and assign each current or new client to category A, B, C or D.
  • Distribute client relationships so that no member of the team has too many A’s. This may make it possible to assign more clients to each staff member.
  • Also consider matching staff to client type. Some staff may be better working with unsophisticated clients, while others are more adept with sophisticated clients.
  • As this model is developed and built, try different alternatives for matching staff to clients. This can help to identify additional alternatives for achieving the company’s objective.

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How Do You Improve Communication with Your Team? Six Thoughts

Situation: A CEO is concerned that communications with her team regarding tasks, goals and operational objectives are insufficiently clear. Members of her team sometimes express confusion with her directions and what has been assigned to them. What have others done to better communicate with their teams? How do you improve communication with your team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Write down what you plan to say and how you will say it before meeting with member(s) of the team. Once direction has been given, ask them to restate the directions or instructions. Ask whether these were clear and whether more detail is needed.
  • Assume that it will take team members 3-4 times the time that it may take you to do the same thing. This will improve over time as they approach your level of skill performing specific tasks.
  • Heartily congratulate achievement – be a cheerleader!
  • If the individual brings up other thoughts that are off point to the planned or immediate objective thank them for the input. Respond – let’s note this separately for the time being and come back to it later once when we address the immediate challenge.
  • Set deadlines for accomplishing objectives and ask where there will be conflicts. Negotiate mutually acceptable adjustments if these are necessary.
  • Communicate the bigger picture. Help them to understand how the assigned task or objective will further company objectives and improve or augment operations or functions. Share the larger vision and their role in achieving it.

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How Do You Build an Effective Compensation Plan? Six Suggestions

Situation: A company hires and trains engineers from outside of their field. Their pay scale is typically below market for engineers in this field. Once the company trains them, these engineers are candidates for recruitment by other firms in the field that are considered premium employers. The CEO wants to address this situation. How do you build an effective compensation plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • In addition to compensation, a high-quality workplace and work experience are equally important.
  • Give the lead engineer or team compensation tied either to engineering charges or gross profit on successful projects. This can be a small percentage – but offers them a compensation upside that they are unlikely to find at another company.
  • Create a peer-recognition award like another company’s RAVE Award (Recognition, Achievement, Value, and Enthusiasm). On a regular basis – perhaps quarterly – the engineering team has the opportunity to select one of their members for this award. Components of the award may include a plaque, a free dinner or massage, or something that team members value. Ask them what they would like to see as rewards within the program.
  • A similar technique is a peer recognition box. Engineers nominate peers for recognition based on performance in a team project. At regular intervals, draw a name from the peer recognition box, with the winner receiving, for example, a gift certificate. The dollars are less important to the recipient than the recognition.
  • Focus on making the company “the place for talented engineers to work.” This can be as much a cultural situation as a place to make a great salary. The more that the company creates a fun and personally rewarding culture, the more it builds “stickiness” into the job. Ask the team for their input to shape the team and work environment.
  • Provide performance incentives for meeting quality objectives while exceeding time objectives. This beats existing cost estimates, so share some of the savings with the team working on the project.
  • Make special company celebrations a regular part of the company culture – for example, evenings out at premium restaurants and including spouses or significant others. By treating significant others well, the company creates a disincentive for the employee to leave.

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How Do You Shift from an Operational to a Strategic Focus? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is concerned that her company is too focused on day-to-day operations with much less focus on strategic objectives and initiatives. She estimates that the company is 75% day to day vs. 25% strategic. What is the best way to shift the focus, and over what timeframe? How do you shift from an operational to a strategic focus?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look at the current mix between day-to-day and strategic activity, set a timeframe for the shift and set interim objectives.
    • For example, if the current mix is perceived as 75% DTD / 25% Strategic, set monthly objectives to move first to 50% / 50% and eventually 25 DTD / 75% Strategic.
  • While the objective is to move the CEO’s and company’s activity more in the strategic direction, it is necessary to assure that the day-to-day bases are being covered.
    • Select a key member of the team to take on this responsibility and train that individual to assure that the day-to-day operations are covered as the company makes this transition. This will be a bonus for the individual selected and will help to deepen the organizations talent pool.
  • During weekly meetings push the discussion more toward the strategic direction.
    • How can the metrics and operational reports be automated and readily available to team members so that less time is spent on this during weekly meetings? Consider an executive dashboard – developed by the CEO and key staff but maintained and updated by staff.
    • This will help to build confidence that the team is able to monitor the business and should reduce the time spent understanding operations. This will allow the team to focus more on strategic vision and plans.
    • This is also important to the company’s ability to monitor operations in its remote locations as these are set up.

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How Do You Improve Communication Skills? Four Strategies

Situation: A CEO wants advice on how to strengthen his communication skills. In particular, he is concerned that occasionally his direction of subordinates is misunderstood. What are the best techniques to communicate clearly and assure that the other party understands not only the direction given, but responds positively to the way that direction is given? How do you improve your communication skills?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • When Delegating equals Empowering, this immediately eases communications.
    • In part because the empowered employee will be more at ease talking and working with the person who delegates.
    • A quick read – The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard – provides excellent techniques for communicating effectively with subordinates.
  • Before concluding any conversation involving the delegation of a task or responsibility, make sure that both the delegator and the person delegated to repeat back their understanding of the task/responsibility and what is to be accomplished.
    • When a subordinate provides information, say “Let me be sure that I understand you. What I heard was _______. Did I understand you correctly?
    • This helps assure both parties that understanding is mutual.
  • When assigning a task or responsibility to another take one of three tacks:
    • “So that we are on the same page, please repeat for me your understanding of the (task/responsibility) and the deliverables.”
    • “Based on our discussion, what do you see as the next steps? When do you anticipate that you will be able to complete them?”
    • (After the individual has demonstrated that you both have the same understanding, or any discrepancies in understanding have been cleared up) “Thanks, would you please send me an email documenting this?”
  • If a documentation hand-off is involved, go back to the broad task or objective. Ask for their understanding of what is to be accomplished and when this will be done.

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