Tag Archives: Performance

What are the Pro and Cons of Micromanaging? Three Observations

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Situation: A CEO is concerned about the performance of both her 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 and require her oversight. How involved should the CEO be in the details of the business? What ae the pros and cons of micromanaging?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The answer to this question depends on you. What is your own priority on the use of your 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? Your answers to these questions will help you to decide where and when to increase your involvement with or oversight of the business.
  • There are both good and bad aspects of involving yourself in details. The Good Side – it 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 advice of 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.

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How Do You Find A-Players? Six Strategies

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Situation: An early stage company will be staffing-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? How do you find A-players?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The best candidates are not in the job-search pool. They are currently working but open to a change with new challenges. 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 and ask, “who do you know?” Don’t be shy!
  • Look for achievers – individuals with proven performance in companies of the size that you plan to be in 12-18 months and who are interested in the excitement of building that company. Check their references carefully.
  • What can the company do now, while seeking 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. For example 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?

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How Do You Sell an Annual Plan? Five Points

Situation: A CEO has developed an annual plan. She wants ideas on the best way to communicate the plan to staff, secure buy-in and create accountability for execution. How do you sell an annual plan?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • Communicate your vision for the company and the future as a broad outline so that employees know how they can contribute. Create a picture so that they can see and support your vision. Ask for input on how to implement the plan. Since they will be doing the work, the best way to generate buy-in and accountability is for them to own the implementation plan.
  • You don’t have to share all details of the plan with everyone. If you communicate the plan in parts to those who will implement them, tailor the message to the person, and create individual objectives that will support the overall plan. Connect achievement of objectives to job evaluations.
  • Limit the number of objectives for each person – three key objectives plus one personal development objective. Have each employee develop activities to support achievement of their objectives.
  • Once objectives are in place, conduct regular meetings to review progress against plan and objectives, identify performance obstacles and solutions, and to reinforce the overall vision. The vision must be simple and direct. Consistently repeat and reinforce the message. Publicly recognize individual contributions that support the vision.
  • Establish metrics to track progress toward the vision. Stay on message with each person – focus on their goals and contributions. Be consistent in your words and actions and use them to reinforce the vision.

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How Do You Coach a New Manager Who Isn’t Cutting It? Six Points

Situation: A CEO recently hired a new high level manager. To integrate the individual into the company the original set of assignments was limited in scope – to help the manager get to know others within the company. The new manager seems to overanalyze things. Long hours are spent carefully drafting plans but there is little action. How can the CEO manage this individual without micromanaging? How do you coach a new manager who isn’t cutting it?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It looks like this person is working long but not necessarily productive hours. This is costing you time and money – both yours and your employees. The question is whether the root cause is the individual’s behavior or your own expectations and behavior. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • Have you clearly outlined your expectations in terms of what is to be delivered, the time in which it is to be delivered, and any constraints around the projects for which this person is responsible?
  • Have you provided the necessary resources and empowered the individual to make the decisions required to bring projects to completion?
  • Have you scheduled regular update meetings with this individual and openly discussed project progress and obstacles to completion?
  • Have you set appropriate expectations with your other staff as to the authority of the new individual? Are you honoring those expectations in your own behavior?
  • If you have done these things, and the individual is not performing, then it is time to ask whether you hired the right person.

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How Do You Accelerate the Progress of a New Sales Person? Four Pieces of Advice

Situation: A CEO recently hired a new sales person. To date, this individual has signed some good customers, but is struggling to generated sales. How patient should the CEO be with this person? How much time should be allowed to demonstrate performance? What metrics do others use to assess and incentivize sales performance?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Set 90 day targets that you expect for the individual to reach: X new accounts, Y in sales revenue, other measures as appropriate to your business. Set these targets WITH the individual, not FOR them so that the individual has ownership of the targets. Monitor the individual’s progress frequently. If the trend is below the target, ask what the individual plans to do to meet or exceed the target. Targets are best set at the time of hiring. If the individual cannot approach these numbers then it’s better to cut sooner rather than later.
• How do you differentiate the sales person from the sales talker? Set firm targets and expect to see results quickly.
• The traits that correlate with success are not traits that that salespeople develop after they are hired. They have to demonstrate these from the beginning. The hiring process must select for these traits.
• There are a number of companies that offering tool that will help identify whether candidates for a sales position possess the traits that your company deems most important. Among these is TTI – Target Training International – www.ttisi.com and Sandler Sales – www.sandler.com.

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How Do You Boost Financial Understanding Within the Team? Five Points

Situation: A CEO is concerned that her team doesn’t appreciate the financial implication of their decisions on the company. This applies to both day-to-day decisions and strategic decisions that team leaders make. What can be done to better connect them and their decisions to the bottom line? How do you boost financial understanding within the team?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Go down the management levels from top to bottom and take the time to explain, in understandable terms, the company’s financial objectives, why they are important, how these are measured, how managers’ day to day decisions impact company performance, and the financial consequences of those decisions.
• Give employees a stake in company performance! For some this may be an ownership stake, for others it could be linking financial performance to their compensation and promotion track.
• The objective is for everyone to view the company as “ours”. This is a critical culture shift from the usual view in terms of “me vs. them”
• Work with the team to establish understandable and trackable formulas for profitable performance.
• Establish meaningful rewards for meeting the company’s plan and financial targets. When employees see a direct link between company financial performance and their paychecks they will pay attention.

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How Do You Hire Good Salespeople? Eight Points

Situation: A CEO struggles with finding competent sales people. Issues include both finding these people, evaluating their skills, and assuring that they fit with the culture of his company. What techniques do others employ to find good candidates? How do you hire good salespeople?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Hiring salespeople is one of the most important jobs a CEO has, yet is paid the least attention. In a small company the CEO is deeply involved in the process, while in larger companies the CEO’s role is assuring that those responsible for selection and hiring are bringing in quality individuals. In either case the important points for the CEO to oversee are as follows:
• Determine what you want the person to do. What skills do they need? How much can you pay? Is that competitive with the market?
• Advertise – use internet portals, print media and referrals. Beyond this, one of the most successful means of recruiting is to hire individuals who have proven their skills in other companies and who are known to and respected by your existing salespeople.
• Review resumes for basic qualifications and weed out all that do not meet those qualifications.
• Test potential hires. There are a number of good tests including: DISC, Meyers-Briggs and Identity Compass.
• Bring candidates in for interview. See how they react to pressure. Are they a good match for the company culture? What is their personality like? Are they comfortable with the company’s philosophy, size, reputation, products and services, and so on?
• Check references and contact their current customers to gather their impressions of the candidate’s capabilities.
• Remember that past performance does not guarantee future results – particularly if there is a significant change in what is being sold.

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How Do You Establish Sales Accountability? Three Approaches

Situation: Several CEOs have experienced difficulty establishing accountability within their sales teams. Sone sales reps consistently come up with excuses for not generating new accounts or meeting their sales objectives. The impact of lost sales had significant effects on revenue performance. How do you establish sales accountability?
Advice from the CEOs:
• It is vital to understand who are the best customers and most profitable products and services for those customers. Establish regular sales meetings to discuss customers, products and services, to identify promising sales opportunities and to coordinate sales efforts.
• Work with both sales management and individual team members to determine desired outcomes:
 Set sales targets – work with the team to establish firm expectations on reasonable and achievable sales targets. Agree on a tracking system to measure progress toward those targets. Encourage members of the team to work together to achieve the targets.
 Customer type – who are they, what are their priorities and expectations, and how can the company best address these.
 Product(s) – work with the team to determine which products best fit each customer type and develop creative ways to position those products to increase sales.
• Establish measurable behaviors which if done will result in success. For example:
 Calls per week and results of those calls.
 Relationships with key decision makers and development of additional relationships within existing and potential customers.
 Thorough qualification before quoting, presenting, demo, and so on. The who, what and why that connects with successful sales..

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How Do You Position a Professional Services Company for Growth? Part 2 Three Suggestions

Situation: The CEO of a professional services company wants to position her company for growth. What suggestions do others have to assist her? How do you position a professional services company for growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Make Time for Organizational Development – Attention to organizational development and enhancing the organization so that it meets the needs of employees can yield significant dividends in terms of company performance and adaptability. When employees’ needs are met, they are motivated to extend their efforts both in performing their current roles and to develop new ideas that will benefit the company. Be sure to recognize these efforts.
  • Temp to Perm (Even for Hiring Leaders) – As the economy recovers there remains a high level of uncertainty as to how robust the recovery will be. In light of this, additions to staff may be approached cautiously. The temp to perm route offers a way for a new individual and the company to get to know one another and to test mutual fit before making a full commitment to permanent employment. This can be true even for positions of significant leadership within the company.
  • Meet the Unrecognized Needs of Customers – The top of the Customer Pyramid is meeting unrecognized needs – needs which the customer may not even know that they have. In a world of increased competition and rapid change, finding ways to understand, anticipate and meet these unrecognized needs of customers yields a significant competitive advantage. Brainstorm with your sales, marketing and customer service teams to identify unrecognized needs of past customers. Use the results to identify unrecognized needs of current and new customers.

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How Do You Use Metrics to Focus Your Team? Three Points

Situation: A CEO wants to improve company performance and is interested in how others use metrics to focus their teams. How do you use metrics to focus your team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Engage your employees in the development of metrics.
    • The team members are close to the customer and the company’s key vendors. What makes sense to measure? What metrics are tied both to performance and a healthy or supportive but competitive environment? What would create adverse conflicts within the business or with either customers or vendors?
  • Metrics need to be meaningful and applicable.
    • They have to directly pertain to day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month objectives and performance.
  • Factor in personal issues.
    • Everyone doesn’t need to have the same metrics – instead formulate metrics that are pertinent to the different roles and individuals within the company.

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