Tag Archives: Prioritize

How Do You Redefine the Top Executive’s Role in the Business? Four Points

Situation: The President of a family-owned business that has been in operation for over 30 years wishes to change her role by increasing delegation of responsibility and accountability within the business in preparation for her eventual retirement. Other family members in the business are happy with their current responsibilities and are resistant to taking on more responsibility. What advice does the group have for this member?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Given that you are preparing for retirement, it is important to let others know about your plans and your desire to increasingly hand off your responsibilities to others. Ideally, one or more of the others will express a desire to take on more leadership, particularly if it includes a boost in pay.
• It is important to clarify responsibilities and prioritize which ones you wish to hand off. Once this is done build and execute a hand-off plan.
• Transition current managers who are misplaced in their position to other roles. Work with them to identify alternate roles where their talents can better benefit the company. They may be aware of their current discomfort and welcome the opportunity to take on a different role more suited to their abilities.
• Focus on removing barriers to delegation that may be in place. For example, bring others into the discussion and review the projects that they are overseeing. Identify the challenges underlying those projects and ask for their suggestions on how to address these. Don’t provide the answers. Ask questions and push them to develop appropriate solutions.

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How Do You Reduce Risk When Outsourcing? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is looking at an outsourcing opportunity in Asia. If a suitable partner is found, this will be the company’s first experience with outsourcing. What is the experience of others who have outsourced either parts or assemblies to a foreign supplier? How do you reduce risk when outsourcing?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Outsourcing to a foreign supplier is not low risk.
    • Find another CEO who has experience in outsourcing.
    • Consider hiring a consultant who specializes in foreign outsourcing.
    • Once a promising opportunity has been identified, select and put in place a trusted individual on-site who can stay abreast of developments and issues and who can alert the company on both potential opportunities and problems.
  • Execute key initiatives by treating this opportunity like a customer’s project.
    • Prioritize.
    • Set project time in percentages or dollars.
    • Allocate an appropriate budget.
    • Institute an appropriate job/project tracking system for outsourced projects.
    • Hold people just as accountable as if this were a project for a customer.
    • The internal “customer” should be just as demanding as an actual customer.
  • Reduce the risk in staffing.
    • Identify requirements.
    • Agree on expectations, then delegate and trust.
    • Two way communication is critical.

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What are the Basics of a One-Page Sales Plan? Four Points

Situation: A CEO wants a simple, one-page plan for her sales organization to help coordinate the company’s sales and marketing efforts. The objective is to boost revenue growth and market penetration with consistent sales messaging. What are the basics of a One-Page Sales Plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The key elements of construction are: research, identification of revenue sources, and construction of a Road Map.
  • Three Examples of a One-Page Sales Plan are:
    • The Customer Survey-based Sales Plan – Ask the top 15 customers what the company’s current share of wallet (SOW) looks like and what they need to do to gain additional SOW. Use the responses to identify additional revenue sources and construct the Road Map.
    • The Service Extension Sales Plan – Construct a grid representing the company’s products and services currently offered to potential customers – particularly the company’s top customers. Create a separate grid showing services that the company does not currently offer and ask customers what the company needs to do to make those services appealing to them. Use the information gained to construct the Road Map.
    • The Current and Potential Revenue Sales Plan – Construct a grid representing the customers and markets currently served and by what product or service. Look at additional customer markets not currently served. Estimate the size, new business closure rates, and the total potential market opportunity. Use the information gained to construct the Road Map.
  • The advantages of a One-Page Sales plan include:
    • One page simplifies the process.
    • Summary of current and new targets.
    • Easy to track and measure.
    • Increases the chance of success.
    • Key people get on the same page.
    • Filters out undesirable customers.
    • A plan that can be completed and implemented quickly, cost effectively with a high ROI.
  • Additional Observations:
    • The company’s principal challenge is prioritizing business opportunities. Creating an “Ideal Customer Profile” helps to produce the desired result.
    • The company has limited resources to invest in new projects. Using an effective, low-cost tool helps to maximize the impact of investment.
    • The ideal customer profile will change over time based on the business environment and the company’s long term goals.

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 Delegate on a Team Basis? Four Options

Situation: A CEO wants to develop a collection of skills within her team as an alternative to just having individuals with skills. For example, her role means that she must travel frequently, often for over a week at a time. How can she develop a system to temporarily reallocate the time of the team to cover her responsibilities while she’s away. How do you delegate on a team basis?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • If the team functions on a high level, this is not really a problem. They will step up.
    • Plan for the time frame during which the CEO will be away.
    • List all responsibilities to be covered and set priorities for response. Focus on the highest priorities first. Delegate them or use them as cross-training opportunities for team members.
    • Meet with team ahead of time. Go over what has to be covered. Ask who can cover this, and delegate first, second and third responders – not just a single individual. This is important so that they know that they are backed up as well. Ask: What concerns or questions do you have? Have the team develop solutions.
    • Where processes are involved, break down the process. Create a decision tree and work with the team on how to make decisions with resources available.
    • Set priorities for the time away before leaving. Ask the team how they would handle situations and coach them if they are not sure. Identify resources for them to use if needed.
  • Use the model that a special forces team uses to train and prepare for missions:
    • Know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
    • Know how to back each other up.
    • Set up situations that are likely to arise and rehearse.
  • Another good model is engineering decision trees.
    • Create decision trees for how frequently occurring situations are handled to help team members determine the proper course of action and how to utilize which resources to respond to these situations.
  • Note the difference between reactive and proactive responsibilities.
    • Train the team to respond to reactive situations.
    • Schedule proactive responsibilities around planned time away to facilitate involvement in these as necessary.
    • Flexibility is critical.

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How Do You Define Roles and Responsibilities? Three Options

Situation: A small company is understaffed and finds it difficult to hire in the current environment. Employees struggle to meet both past and new responsibilities. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to meet objectives. How do you clarify objectives so that the team can meet them? How do you define roles and responsibilities?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Start by working with employees to create a list of current responsibilities for each employee, along with the estimated time required to fulfill each responsibility.
    • Within this list, classify each responsibility as “Must Do,” “Second Priority,” or “When we have time.”
    • Look at the hours in the day or week. Assess what is possible to do in the hours available, and what is not.
    • Discuss this with the team and ask whether they agree with both the assessment and priority list.
    • Discuss trade-offs and the availability of any resources with the company that may be currently underutilized.
  • Reassess the expectations of clients to determine whether everything that is being done must be done in the timeframe currently promised. This helps to define what is truly urgent and what is not.
  • Another way of stating the process is to:
    • Prioritize and delegate what can be done, or reallocate what can’t be done with current resources.
    • Look for ways to work smarter to get more done in the time and with available resources.
    • If lower priority items still can’t get completed in the available time either drop them or discuss options for accessing additional resources to complete them.

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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 Improve Delegation? Three Solutions

Situation: A company is growing rapidly. As it grows it is important to build the management team needed to support this growth. A few talented potential managers have a tough time letting go of previous responsibilities. How does the CEO help them to let go of previous responsibilities. How do you improve delegation?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Don’t teach method. The individuals to whom responsibilities are to be delegated may feel like trained monkeys, not the bright creative people that they are.
    • Set goals. Give them the information that they need to get there. Let them know that there is a procedure, and they are welcomed to use or adapt this as they wish. If they can find a better way that is more efficient – Wonderful!
    • Empower them. This is an investment. Like many investments, it may take time to generate a return, but be patient and wait for this return.
  • Look at the required roles and prioritize them as most to least critical to the company.
    • Start delegating the less critical roles, as well as the roles that are less time sensitive.
    • This will make it easier to maintain patience.
    • Also, delegate roles that play to the strengths of those to whom new responsibilities are being delegated. Those taking these roles will be happier and will do a better job.
  • Create an organizational chart for each department and responsibilities.
    • Make sure that all of the roles for which a department is responsible are included, but group these into similar roles so that there are, for example, 3-5 role delegations.
    • Prioritize each role for importance and urgency.
    • Take the least urgent and significant role and delegate it. Either assign it to an existing individual, or hire someone to take it on.
    • Once this has been done this and those to whom roles are delegated are used to them, do the same with the next least important or urgent role.
    • Do this over time until all the needed roles have been delegated, and managers are comfortable managing the individuals now responsible for them.
    • A valuable resource is the EMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It is a quick read and provides guidelines for how to delegate and let go of responsibilities the organization grows.

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How Do You Hold People Accountable? Four Suggestions

Situation: A new CEO of a small company finds it difficult to hold people accountable. To her, delivering criticism feels like delivering “bad news.” This makes her feel uncomfortable, so she hesitates and often takes care of tasks herself. This cuts into her planning and strategy time. How do you hold people accountable?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • This may be a question of semantics and the view of the task.
    • From a big picture standpoint, real bad news is saying “you’re fired!” By comparison, providing input to correct behavior or results is minor. Consider it coaching instead of bad news.
    • Consider the other person. Constructive feedback is positive. It communicates care about them as a person and their future within the company. It expresses a desire that they do well, and that the CEO is willing to take the time to help them.
  • The CEO’s job is to captain the ship that the team serves. When the CEO “does it herself” instead of providing coaching to others, she has abandoned the wheel. It also suggests that others aren’t up to the job.
  • Step back and look at the CEO’s big picture.
    • Nobody expects immediate perfection. The CEO position was offered because others judged the person as ready for it. They know from experience that learning management takes time.
    • However, they also know that becoming CEO requires giving up past responsibilities. The job is to coach others to perform to company standards.
  • What immediate steps can be taken?
    • Prioritize management time over task time.
    • When a team member’s work needs correction, do this with them. Show them how to correct the work. Coach them to the proper standards. Assure that they are clear on why and how to complete the work.
    • This is a double win – getting the job done in less time (for the CEO) and helping the team member to complete the work correctly the next time.
    • The CEO’s position is not as a resource. The role is to develop resources. This is the new value to the firm, the justification for the CEO’s salary, and the key to future success.

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How Do You Develop an Employee to the Next Level? Four Points

Situation: A CEO has a key employee who wants a higher level of responsibility. Currently this employee is primarily focused on business development. He’s good at this but wants a higher level of experience. The CEO agrees. How do you develop an employee to the next level?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • If you ask this individual what needs to be done, what happens?
    • Revenue is number one. This is where he is focused, but he wants more than this from his role.
    • If this is also the CEO’s primary objective then the CEO needs to back off and direct him to split his time between closing high level opportunities and training his direct reports to be able to close lower-level opportunities on their own.
  • To the CEO – thinking about your own experience, how did you mature to a higher level when you had primary responsibility for business development?
    • Answer: I built and trained staff to do this and delegated these responsibilities to them.
    • Allow this individual and other key managers within the company to do the same thing, and coach them along the way.
    • Empower this individual to build his staff and enable them to take on more of the functions that he no longer wants to handle himself. Allow him to prioritize his time to focus on: hiring and training of his key staff and coaching and supervision as they grow into their new roles.
  • Consider this solution as a larger project manager role. Take a key product and empower this individual to design, build and manage the organization to deliver this product.
  • To frame this solution short-term, start with a 1-on-1. Ask about his vision – what he wants as his role and how he sees building this.
    • Follow by laying this out in terms of the company’s objectives – be specific as to what this looks like.
    • Look for a win / win reconciliation between the CEO’s and the employee’s visions that meet both of their objectives. Get on the same page with this individual, so that this fulfills both of your needs.

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