Tag Archives: Opportunity

How Do You Develop and Train Leaders? Ten Suggestions

Situation: Many CEOs face challenges developing and training leaders within their ranks. What guidance can the group give to help guide them improve leadership development? How do you develop and train leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • On the hiring end, pick good people and support them.
  • Empower employees and encourage self-management.
  • Constructively manage the company’s growth rate rather than just “grow as much as you can.” Some growth rates are unsustainable.
    • Estimate the risks and rewards.
    • Consider the pros and cons of growth and manage growth to maximize the pros while minimizing the cons.
  • Respect personality types – not everyone is or wants to be a potential leader.
  • Mentoring – pair leadership candidates with proven leaders.
  • “Response to error” is one of the key values to define. If errors are always used to evaluate individuals, people tend to hide their mistakes or deflect blame. If errors are viewed as a “company resource”, people are more willing to bring them out into the open. Furthermore properly addressing errors are the best opportunity for correction and improvement.
  • Design the compensation system to reward both innovation and leadership.
    • Focus rewards on long-term results. For example, reward sales people on follow-up and quality of service or product actually delivered rather than on just booking the sale.
    • Align rewards with company culture and objectives. This may include profits, sales and production. Alternatives to consider – team vs. individual goals and bonuses, process improvement vs. focus on dollars, and percent of salary represented by bonus or award.
  • Ask the employees what is important to them. Don’t try to guess.
  • Evaluate and adjust the company’s career growth opportunities.
  • Make management thoughts and goals visible. Mentor the next level of management by demonstrating executive thought patterns rather than just sharing the final decision.

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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 Assess Team Morale? Five Points

Situation: Given current uncertainty about the future of the economy, a CEO wants to assess team morale. In the past, as the company grew, she received lots of input on how people were feeling about their jobs. As the company has grown, she no longer receives this. What can she do to gather more input without alarming people in the process? How do you assess team morale?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Find opportunities to spend time informally with your employees. Talk to them one-on-one or in small groups in the lunchroom or while getting tea. Organize, or have others organize company events where individuals can be more relaxed and open about their feelings.
  • If you have lunch in the lunchroom 3 times a week, and sit with different employees each day. Over the course of a month or a few months you can talk to the majority of them – perhaps several times.
  • Ask how they are – family, friends, relations, and their neighborhood. They may be hesitant to talk to the CEO about their jobs, but it is possible to get a sense of how they feel indirectly by asking about family and friends. Listen to what they have to say. Be sympathetic.
  • Be open to others. MBWA – Manage By Walking Around.
  • Ask supervisors to be your ears. They work with their teams on a daily basis and will have a sense of what is going on and how employees are feeling. They may have good ideas about improvements that the company can make in employee relations.

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What are Best Practices for Interviewing and Hiring? Three Points

Situation: A company typically interviews candidates for open positions in a two-day process. The candidate talks to four or more people. The total time with a candidate is about 6 hours, and the hiring process, once a good candidate is identified, takes about 1 week. Is this typical of other companies? What are best practices for interviewing and hiring?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Extend the process – add some pressure to it.
    • All companies deal with pressure and stress from time to time. The team is frequently under pressure. Artificially create a pressure situation for a candidate – preferably later in the day when they are tired. This will help to identify whether they are cool under pressure, irritable or sloppy.
    • For example, put an engineering candidate in front of a computer and give them 30 minutes to do a job that you know would normally take 60 minutes. Don’t mention the mismatch to the candidate. The point is NOT whether they can complete the task, but to watch how they respond under high pressure.
    • This is not unfair to the candidate. It puts them precisely in a situation that they will find while working at the company. Give them the opportunity to demonstrate through their behavior that they either respond positively or really don’t want to be put into these situations.
  • Conduct thorough reference checks – including past employers or clients.
  • DISC profiles (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) are used to improve teamwork and understand different communication styles
    • Identify an experienced local resource who can help to assess the DISC profile of the company.
    • This individual can advise human resources and hiring managers on the use and interpretation of DISC profiles of candidates to help assure good company fit.

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How Do You Work with Challenging People? Two Cases

Situation: A CEO has two challenging employees. One is talented and learns quickly. However, he is an individual performer who only works well on his own. He feels that he should be paid more than the maximum available at his grade. The second individual will do anything, but generates a lot of overtime. He is  meticulous but has a high rework rate. How do you work with challenging people?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Offer a trial opportunity to the first individual, as follows.
    • Say a particular job is estimated to require 3 hours of labor. If he can finish it in 2, he will be paid the full 3 hours of labor. However, if rework is required, then the hours for that rework will get dinged against future work that is completed under-time.
    • This provides an opportunity to make more on each job – and the company the ability to bid and complete more jobs – but also means that if sloppy work is used to finish early, he will pay for this later.
    • Because this individual is a quick learner and is diligent, he is a good candidate for this program on a trial period basis. If it works, others may want to try the same deal, potentially cutting overtime and labor cost per job. This may also prompt them to assure that they have everything that they need before they start a job, cutting unproductive time and overtime.
  • The second individual could be a cut-him-loose situation.
    • Take the individual aside and clearly express the expectations. If he indicates that he understands and will complete his work to expectations, tell him that you will work with him.
    • To assure that he clearly understands the instructions and expectations, ask him to repeat these back to you.
    • Emphasize the importance of making sure that he has the materials needed before going to a job, and the job is done correctly the first time.
    • If his response is “No, I can’t do that,” tell him that the company will help him to find another job, within reasonable bounds of time and effort.

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How Do You Improve Resource Allocation? Three Suggestions

Situation: A company is so busy with ongoing projects that they are unable to allocate resources to major infrastructure development projects. The CEO wants to know what the company can do to make sure that these projects get the attention that they deserve. How do you improve resource allocation?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Most of the time, and in most companies, some slack resources exist for at least part of a day. While it may not be the most efficient solution, one CEO divides 2nd tier projects into chunks and assigns work to individuals who have time.
  • Consider hiring an outside contractor who is hired exclusively to work on infrastructure projects.
  • Design a long-term solution:
    • Look at actual downtime over the course of an extended period.
    • Review the opportunities, prioritize them with the most important having the highest priority, and sequence them.
    • As resources have free time, assign them to work on the top priority project available at that time. When this project is completed, queue up the next highest priority project for work.
    • Review the opportunity list on a regular basis and reprioritize based on current conditions.
  • Key Take-Aways from this Discussion
    • Be patient; let it happen.
    • Space and resources exist. Establish a process to focus on opportunities one at a time.

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How Do You Deal with a CAVE Person? Four Options

Situation: A CEO has an employee who is very talented as an individual contributor but is destructive in a team atmosphere. The CEO wants to give this individual the opportunity to succeed and contribute, but simultaneously wants to limit the negative impact on other employees. In colloquial terms, this individual is a CAVE Person (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).  How do you deal with a CAVE person?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Limit this individual’s focus to his strengths. Work with his manager to facilitate this.
    • Let him focus and crank out work as an individual contributor.
    • Don’t require this individual to participate in group meetings. Approach this by asking if he likes meetings. The likely answer is no. Follow-up by asking whether he’d prefer to focus his time in areas where he can contribute the most.
    • Be sure to compliment him on his work when this is deserved.
  • For the last three years we’ve learned the utility and limits of remote work. Consider remote work as an option for this individual. Work out a schedule of individual one-on-ones with his manager via Zoom to assure that he has what he needs to fulfill his role.
  • Drive the department to company’s and the manager’s attitude – not his.
    • If he is having a bad day, keep up a good attitude without allowing his attitude to bring the team down.
  • Realize that it may not be possible to fix this individual’s attitude or save his position.
    • Make every attempt to find an appropriate niche for this person in the company.
    • Document the efforts and accommodations made.
    • Have his manager write him up when he is destructive to the team.
    • Be prepared if, at the end of the day, it’s necessary to let him go. It may be the best thing for both him and the team.
    • Another member shared her experience with a CAVE person at a previous company. They made every attempt to accommodate the individual, but documented as they proceeded. When they finally let the person go, everybody’s productivity increased because the distraction was no longer present.

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What’s the Optimum Business Strategy: Going Broader or Deeper? Five Points

Situation: A CEO wants to expand her company’s business base, either by diversifying its client base, or by going deeper into current clients. What are some of the key questions that should be considered as they evaluate these two alternatives? What’s the optimum business strategy – going broader or deeper?

Advice of the Forum:

  • If the company diversifies, what will be the perception of current clients?
    • Will they see this as more or less beneficial to their interests?
  • What are the most important objectives – what is leadership trying to achieve? Does the response to this question weigh in favor or one or the other alternative?
  • Analyze the available markets, as well as the company’s current share of the existing market. Is the company the dominant player in its market or is there still ample growth opportunity by investing in deeper penetration of the existing market?
  • Are there important vulnerabilities regarding the current client base? Is the company too dependent on a small number of customers? What will happen if key customers decide to choose another vendor or to develop internal resources to meet their needs?
  • For the option to go deeper into the current client base, what is the resource match between the objective and current resources?
    • Do current employees have the appropriate competencies?
    • What is the available time and dollars to pursue the market?
    • What is the ROI target and what are the risks?
    • Does the company have the right infrastructure to pursue the market, or will it require developing additional infrastructure? What is the cost of development in time, money and resources?
    • It is an area in which the company can excel, and does it align with the passion and drive of the current business focus?

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How Many Direct Reports is Too Many? Five Thoughts

Situation: A young company has been growing rapidly but hasn’t been growing its infrastructure to support its growth. The CEO now has fifteen direct reports. Things are getting hectic and the CEO wonders whether it’s time to make a change. How many direct reports is too many?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It is generally accepted that the largest number of direct reports that an individual can successfully manage is ten. Beyond this and even at this number, if the reports require significant supervision it is difficult to meet the needs of the individuals and to effectively direct their multiple activities.
  • The maximum number of individuals that you can manage depends upon what you are managing.
    • If the individuals are very independent, then perhaps ten can be managed.
    • If the individuals require any significant levels of supervision and/or training, the number goes down rapidly.
  • This is both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is determining the right number of reports for the CEO to manage. The benefit is the opportunity to start building a management team.
  • The benefit will be that by adding managers reporting to the CEO, there is the opportunity to train individuals who can take on additional managerial responsibilities in the future. As the company continues to expand this will become critical to future growth.
  • Another benefit is the ability to divide responsibilities among the teams.
    • For example, one team becomes the sales team, a second the Client Services team, and a third becomes the back-office operations team.
    • As the company expands, there is the opportunity to add additional subgroups to the sales and client service teams. simultaneously serviced by the existing back-office operations team.

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What are Appropriate Social Interactions at Work? Three Thoughts

Situation: A first-time CEO is curious about the experience of others regarding social or personal interactions with employees at work. At previous companies, outside of company picnics or similar events there was little interaction between top staff and employees. Do others observe similar practices? What are appropriate guidelines for social interactions at work?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Consider the following cases:
    • Case 1 – even though individuals may be friends outside of work, they often do not engage as “friends” at work. There is a different role structure at work.
    • Case 2 – if, based on history, a CEO and employee have had a close relationship outside of work, the CEO should not show favoritism toward this individual at work. It is important to preserve a veil of trust with the other employees; apparent favoritism will disrupt this.
    • Case 3 – a CEO may have lunch with employees, to build relationships and keep tabs on the company atmosphere, but other social activity outside of work should be handled cautiously.
  • There is a natural distance between any employee and those individuals who evaluate or review them or decide on promotions. The individuals have a power over the employee that prevents them from approaching each other as true peers.
    • Because of this natural barrier, it is inappropriate to force social or personal interactions. The best option is to make sure that the employees know that the boss cares about them, has their interests in mind, and shows an interest in them and their families.
    • It is important to take advantage of opportunities to demonstrate to employees that the CEO is interested in them.
  • The situation is different between managers and their teams. Teams function on the basis of relationships and trust. If the CEO is invited, it is appropriate to attend team or department functions. Observe and learn from these interactions with the others. Most of all, listen actively, and patiently allow the interactions to mature. Don’t force things.

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