Tag Archives: Responsibility

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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How Do You Reduce Interruptions in the Office? Three Points

Situation: A CEO of a small company finds it difficult to focus of company strategy and direction because on continuous interruptions to handle customer and company issues. Frequent phone calls and employees coming in to ask for guidance or to talk about issues make it difficult to focus on plans for the future. How do you reduce interruptions in the office?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The company has grown to the point that it is time to build a management structure to facilitate decision-making. It’s time to delegate.
    • Identify promising individuals within the company who have the capacity to take on management responsibility. Provide them with the training to assume managerial roles and to handle direct reports.
    • If the talent is lacking in some areas, hire managers to oversee these areas.
  • The phone is the #1 problem – interruptions to deal with customer issues.
    • Hire an assistant to manage incoming calls and to transfer these calls to the appropriate department.
    • Learn to say no. For example, if an opportunity requires the CEO to be off-site to evaluate and estimate a project, that individual could not answer the phone in the office. Similarly, it is necessary to carve out concentrated time for strategic and critical tasks when in the office.
    • Explain to the team the challenge, and the benefits of spending uninterrupted time each day working on strategic direction. These benefits include additional growth and opportunity for both the company and employees.
    • Establish an official time – during regular hours – that the CEO is not available to respond to calls or other immediate needs. During these times, have an assistant direct these requests to the appropriate department or schedule time later in the day to handle an issue.
  • Any executive in a Fortune 500 company plans time for planning and other essential work when they cannot be interrupted. Working without interruptions is essential to efficient, high-quality work.

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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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How Do You Develop the Next Level of Leadership? Two Points

Situation: A CEO finds that it is time to develop the next level of management and leadership to support the company’s planned growth. She has received input from several sources but is curious as to how other CEOs have taken their staff to the next level. How do you develop the next level of leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Consider as an example how a law firm typically grooms and grows new partners:
    • Give them an area of responsibility.
    • Provide targets (expectations and metrics) and give them the opportunity to produce results.
    • Put the highest performers on track for promotion.
    • As is the case in a law firm, the candidates for management and leadership for will be a combination of rainmakers and the best talent in critical performance areas.
  • What should be budgeted for professional growth and development?
    • One example – provide up to 10% of hours per week for an individual who shows a true desire to improve their skills. Watch how the individual performs, but make sure that there is a measurable return before continuing this beyond a certain point.
    • Another alternative: let the candidate decide by matching 50% of what they are willing to spend on training and education. Require proof of completion of the course and likely an acceptable grade average if the training is academic and reimburse after the fact.
    • Ask the candidate to demonstrate the ROI for the training for which was reimbursed 50% before agreeing to continue to support additional education. Let them develop the calculation but insist on final review and approval of their analysis before continuing to fund additional education.

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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 Create an Effective Staff Back-up System? Three Recommendations

Situation: A CEO has a staffing issue. The company has four product areas but only three strong leads. There are no back-ups for these leads. The CEO feels that the company can’t afford full-time back-ups and is concerned that the presence of back-ups may threaten the leads. How do you create an effective staff back-up system?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are two problems, not one.
    • The leads may not be great managers and may not even like managerial responsibility.
    • The company has one administrator with support from the leads.
    • The company’s vulnerability is having an effective lead leave and taking their key core team members with them. This would create a significant hole in the company’s offering.
    • Change the structure – put manager administrators at top and let the leads do what they love to do. Fit the jobs of the leads to their skills and talents.
  • Hire the best #2s that can be found to back up the effective leads. Replace the less effective lead with a new lead.
    • Replace current team members who aren’t as good with new staff. This will provide the funding for the new people.
    • Then separate managers from architects in terms of role. This does not mean a change of compensation, or necessarily even titles. It means aligning roles with talents. It will also mean that individuals will be happier in their roles and will be less likely to leave.
    • Don’t do this all at once, but in gradual stages to avoid panic and allow individuals the time to adapt to their new roles. Act as a coach adjusting the whole team to a new playbook.
  • Consider adjusting the compensation structure to retain the key leads.

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How Do You Create Consistent Business Operations? Seven Thoughts

Situation: A CEO is concerned that business operations are inconsistent. Employees are always coming to her for answers instead of working things out themselves. As a result, the CEO is continually focused on operational details as opposed to strategic direction. How do you create consistent business operations?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Make managers live up to their titles.
    • Require them to go to each other to solve problems first, instead of always asking the CEO.
    • When they ask a question, don’t give them the solution, but advice on how to solve it.
    • Require them to present solutions vs. problems
    • Be willing to spend money on their solutions.
  • Answer all questions with questions.
    • Ask them for their recommendation.
    • Keep asking until they come up with the answer.
  • When one starts to delegate, it hurts for a while but will work itself out.
  • The CEO should not be doing “regular jobs” that are really employees’ responsibilities.
  • How has implementing these suggestions impacted other companies?
    • Businesses have become more diversified.
    • CEOs are focused strategically vs. tactically.
    • Businesses are more successful and profitable.
    • CEOs enjoy coming to work again.
  • Create a sales intern program.
    • Hire 4 sales interns for $10-15/hour – with the offer that after 3 months there will be full time jobs for those who prove they can sell.
    • Have the top 4 sales staff design the intern program – call response scripts, responsibilities, etc. – subject to CEO review and approval.
    • Assign one intern to each of these 4 sales staff in mentor/mentee relationships. This will demonstrate the capacity that each has as a sales manager.
  • Should younger workers be handled differently?
    • Allow flexibility – where appropriate – on hours and how they do their jobs.
    • Responsibility will also vary by pay level – higher pay equals more hours and more accountability.

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How Do You Get Comfortable Delegating to Staff? Eight Points

Situation: A CEO senses that employees don’t have his sense of urgency regarding the business. A case in point is responding quickly to new customer inquiries in a competitive market. Too often, he takes over to assure that bids are submitted quickly. How do you get comfortable delegating to staff?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Prepare for a meeting with staff by defining the key desired standards in advance.
  • Initiate the meeting with this message: “We have a company image. This is how we define it.” Work with staff to create standards that define this image.
  • Agree on standards with the team.
    • Discuss standards with the team but have them make the decision. Guide the conversation – through questions – to focus on the desired standards. Be open to using the language developed by staff to enhance ownership.
  • Examples of standards that may apply:
    • Response time to incoming calls, maximum number of rings before response.
    • Time to return telephone messages.
    • Time to return emails.
    • Invoices completed the day or the order, or whatever is appropriate.
  • Establish a response regimen – assure that response is professional.
    • Train all people who pick up the phone.
    • Assign rotating office days for salespeople with responsibility to answer the phones.
  • Emphasize the importance of speedy response with an explanation that everyone will understand.
    • When a customer calls, assume that they are also calling 2-3 other suppliers. The first responder can shape the conversation in favor of their company and offering – for example the company can offer both a solution plus design and logistics assistance.
    • As first responded, assure that the focus is on the company’s strengths – this puts the competition at an immediate disadvantage.
  • Enforce and maintain the standards
    • Once standards are set, make review and updates of performance against standards part of weekly sales meetings. Use large charts to track this.
    • Create friendly internal competition. Who got the most business last week? Who did the best with incoming calls? Have the team develop competitive goals.
    • Recognize top performers with $50 – $100 cash award, restaurant certificate, etc. Make it fun!
  • If “everyone” is supposed to pick up the phone this becomes “nobody” because nobody is responsible for picking up the phone!

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Who Owns Quality Control? Eight Recommendations

Situation: The CEO of a company has a problem. Quality control is an essential part of the company’s success, but ownership of quality control issues is proving difficult. When more than one department is involved, each blames the other for issues or deficiencies. Who owns quality control?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • At the end of the day the project owner must own this responsibility. This individual can delegate work but not accountability.
  • QC must be embedded within the company’s systems. In addition, someone has to walk in daily to ask what is wrong with this project? What can be done better? A skeptic.
  • Put a skeptic in the QC role – the job is to find what’s wrong, not what’s right – a tactical skeptic.
    • Skeptics are ideal for design reviews.
    • It isn’t necessary to hire someone for this role if there’s already a productive skeptic on staff.
    • This person needs to be vocal and will irritate some of the other staff. Coach staff to tolerate this, because the individual is performing an essential role.
  • It’s impossible to check everything. However, as issues are identified, everything can be documented.
    • As systems are reviewed, look for patterns of problems.
    • Develop solutions as problems are identified.
    • Log issues and solutions on a shared server to facilitate access by project managers.
  • Institute cross-functional design reviews – representatives from different functions offer different perspectives. Formalize design reviews in the early and start-up stages of projects.
  • Work on company culture – build anticipation of challenges into the culture.
  • Build a heuristic of the output of each program. Use this to make sure that inputs, filters and system checks will produce the desired output and the desired level of quality.
  • Ask: where is QC currently working within the company? Why is it working?
    • Operations and testers catch the errors.
    • The issue is distributing the knowledge gained. In complex systems nobody understands the full picture or the impact on the customer.
    • This becomes the responsibility of the project owner.

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How Do You Maintain the Passion for Your Business? Six Thoughts

Situation: The CEO of a company is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the passion that she had when the business was young. Day to day work feels like having a monkey on her back with too much time spent on sales and business minutiae. Too little time is spent on strategy and growth. How do you maintain the passion for your business?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look at what you like and don’t like – delegate what you don’t like.
    • Delegate activities which are inappropriate for a top executive – like answering the telephone when others are present to do this.
  • Get everybody in the same boat – get them rowing in unison.
    • Delegate more responsibility – with the understanding that others will make mistakes. When they do, they must understand their responsibility for repairing them.
    • Prioritize tasks as they are delegated to reduce conflict or confusion.
  • Strengthen relationships with key suppliers and customers. This is a strategic move to reduce future risk to the company.
  • How did you get the monkey off your back?
    • Ask managers and employees for their input – have them develop solutions. If they push back that they don’t know how or don’t have the resources, let them know that their job is to provide solutions, not just to identify problems.
    • This takes time and patience, but if the CEO is steadfast this can yield results in a surprisingly short period of time.
  • Reduce time spent on sales. Become the closer – the only person who can do that little something to close a sale.
    • Have the others do the heavy lifting our qualifying the customer, developing the solution, crafting the proposal and presenting this to the customer. Limit the CEO’s involvement to reviewing the proposal prior to presentation, and to acting as closer ONLY if sales can’t do the job themselves.
  • Learn to take time off – develop other interests. This is the first step in being able to take longer periods of time off.

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