Tag Archives: Reward

How Do You Boost Team Morale? Ten Suggestions

Situation: A CEO is concerned because he anticipates an increase in stress within his team – from handling clients who are anxious about the economy on the downside to a potentially overwhelming number of new clients to manage as people start to reinvest in growth as the economy improves. How do you boost team morale?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Help team members to prepare for additional pressure:
    • Communicate with them as a team, and individually as necessary, about what the company anticipates to be the new challenge. Do this with a positive tone.
    • Be open with the team about the realities that they may face, and have the team work together during weekly meetings to develop solutions that will help to reduce the pressure as it builds.
    • Make stressors positive. Bringing on new clients is wonderful for the firm, will increase profitability and the opportunity for profit sharing.
  • What have others done to successfully maintain employee morale and increase productivity?
    • Reward programs for people who learn new processes or develop new skills. The real reward isn’t the cash, but recognition by the CEO, who makes a big deal about the reward.
    • Monthly or quarterly drawings for a cash price. Employees can increase their odds of winning because the number of tickets that an individual has in the hat is driven by accomplishments against criteria set each period.
    • Monthly barbeque lunch for the whole company. This promotes camaraderie, and encourages people to talk to one another about things other than business.
    • Project-based bonuses – tied to individual contribution.
    • Spot bonus or gift cards – allowing employees to recognize each other’s’ contributions.
    • Post individual “win” achievements on a bulletin board in the break room. This injects fun competition into day-to-day work.
  • Develop a list similar to the suggestions, above, and ask employees what type of recognition and pressure relievers they would like to see – bring them into the decision.

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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 Address the Compensation Side of an Employee Development Plan? Four Points

Situation: A CEO has an employee who consistently performs above expectations. The employee has asked whether they could be rewarded for over-performance on customer retention and for gaining new business from existing customers. How can this be structured? How do you address the compensation side of an employee development plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • This is the type of employee that every CEO wants to see. Responding positively to the employee’s request is essential, and an opportunity to assure the employee’s loyalty and retention by the company.
  • One structure is bonus multipliers based on under or over performance. An example of the structure could be to assign and have the employee agree to a target for customer retention or new business acquisition from existing customers. Bonus is then impacted by their performance against this objective as follows:
    • Hit <85% of the target – no bonus;
    • Hit 85-100% of target – receive your standard bonus;
    • Hit 110% of target – get bonus times 10%
    • Hit 120% of target – get bonus times 20%
    • And so on.
  • This is just an example for the purpose of illustration. Variations on the original bonus plan can be negotiated with the employee, and adjusted over time to further encourage continued outstanding performance.
  • The multipliers do not necessarily have to be large, but are there to show that a certain level of performance is expected to receive this portion of the bonus. In addition, the employee can increase the bonus by overachieving their objectives.

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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 Get the Best from Your People? Six Solutions

Situation: A CEO is concerned that employees are not taking enough initiative. They keep coming back to him for assistance solving each step in a process rather than solving it on their own or with the assistance of other team members. This takes time away from his primarily role developing and guiding the present and future of the company. What can he do help employees become more self-sufficient? How do you get the best from your people?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Don’t offer to help employees solve the problem or take over the task to save time and effort. Use the “answer a question with a question” technique to let them know that it is their responsibility to develop and complete the solutions and processes on their own.
  • Tailor the coaching approach to the particular individual and situation that he or she faces.
  • Just let go. Allow them to fly without depending on the CEO.
  • Classify frequent problems and solutions into types, and have the team develop solution templates for each type. Provide training on the solution templates so that everyone is familiar with them.
  • Select top performers to act as peer-mentors to train and cross-train staff. There are three rewards for their taking on this role: added recognition for their talents, accelerated promotion opportunity, and additional pay or bonuses for their efforts.
  • An excellent resource is The One-Minute Manager. It is short, to the point, and offers valuable techniques to encourage initiative and both independent and team problem-solving among employees.

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How Do You Balance Career and Personal Goals? Three Guides

Situation: After two challenging two years, a CEO has observed that to keep the company afloat he has had do set aside his personal goals. As the economy has recovered business conditions have improved and he wants to devote more time to personal goals and objectives. Where should he focus, and how have others faced this challenge? How do you balance career and personal goals?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Take the time to think about and quantify a long-term solution. This should be in detail with specific and measurable objectives, and, ideally, timelines.
    • Talk to peers. Ask them about their experience and how they defined both professional and personal goals.
    • Seek a mentor. Evaluate several before selecting one
    • Use introspection and identify the real issues and factors – both those that must be tackled and those that are aspirational.
  • Document your dreams and pursue them.
    • Define your goals and objectives.
    • Define what makes you happiest and assure that the goals objectives align with this.
    • Create a reward structure. Assure that you are in charge of each reward.
  • Pursue fulfilling outside activities.
    • Look at organizations or courses that are inspirational and aspirational and which align with what was documented in the first two steps. These could be formal organizations like Toastmasters or evening academic or online courses that appeal to the documented aspirations.
    • Get a copy of Don Clifton’s “Now, Discover Your Strengths.” It includes a link to the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment that helps to identify strengths and fulfilling talents.

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How Do You Create a Good Lead Generation Campaign? Five Thoughts

Situation: A CEO wants to increase the company’s customer base. What have others done to generate leads in order to expand their customer base. What techniques have worked best? How do you create an effective lead generation campaign?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One CEO who targets large customers used outside telesales at first but found them to be ineffective. They have since gone to an inside team. There is a learning phase, but with experience this can be an effective solution.
  • Another company uses an inside telesales team. This started with one individual and has become a team. Because this provides more control, one can hire for quality. This is often older callers who sound very professional on the telephone. It also provides the opportunity to tweak the telephone script for special promotions or circumstances.
    • For this company the number of calls per lead and closed account are high – up to 5% for leads and 1% for closed accounts. With a disciplined team and proper incentives, this is very doable.
  • Investigate the availability of local business lists such as Craig’s List or Rich’s Business Lists These lists are searchable by industry and business parameters.
  • Consider small professional conferences that attract target personnel of your key potential prospects. These are great networking and lead generation opportunities.
  • Make sure that there is a good link between the telemarketing and sales teams. This includes tracking, credit and rewards for landing accounts, and similar incentives.

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How Do You Manage Company and Board Dynamics? Four Points

Situation: A company started as a collaboration of friends. Upon incorporation the leader became the CEO, and some of the original team became members of the Board. The CEO struggles with the responsibilities of being CEO while wishing to maintain the friendships that drive the company. How do you manage company and board dynamics?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • While the company was formed as a collaboration of friends, once it incorporated the nature of the relationships necessarily changed. While away from work the CEO may remain friends and close to the others; however, within the company there must be one CEO who is responsible to the shareholders for operating the company according to that individual’s vision. If the CEO and company are successful, all will be rewarded.
    • Shareholders are not partners – a partnership entity is inherently different from a corporate entity based on share ownership.
  • Within a corporate structure, majority control is critical.
    • While one should never trample on the rights of other shareholders, having 51% is better than having 47% ownership. Majority ownership makes it unnecessary to assemble a majority to drive the company in the direction that the CEO seeks.
    • That said, it is important to encourage the ideas and creativity of minority shareholders who are also employees. There is an art to recognizing and incorporating the ideas of others while the CEO, in the end, maintains final say.
  • The CEO’s job – and preferably within a small company as both Chairman and CEO – is to develop the CEO’s vision of the company and drive this through the organization.
  • Having a key employee report to the Board rather than to the CEO is likely a mistake. Employees do not do well long-term reporting to a committee.

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How Do You Best Test a New App Online? Five Perspectives

Situation: A CEO has a new app that her company wants to test online. The principal challenge is avoiding a “catastrophic success” – success that ramps so quickly that the company is unable to deliver the quality or responsiveness expected by users. How do you best test a new app online?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The challenge is similar to that faced in the massively multiplayer game space.
    • Creators target a small number of known enthusiasts (sneezers) with the message that they are special. The creators ask them to preview a new game and provide feedback that will help the creators produce the best game possible.
    • Never apologize for an Alpha or Beta test. Let enthusiasts know that they are getting the first peek at what will be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Enthusiasts will tolerate Alpha conditions – as long as the company responds quickly to their suggestions for service or performance improvement.
  • For initial live tests hype the coolness and uniqueness of early availability and adoption.
    • Don’t lower expectations – manage them by responding very rapidly and fixing any glitches. This is why Web companies are 24-hour, eat and sleep in the office affairs during launch and for as long post-launch as needed to assure success.
    • Continually hype the coolness of being involved early.
    • Use the current version as the early test. When the company is ready to spread beyond the very first users, reward them for sneezing the app to other users.
      • For example, as a Beta Testers, users get 10 free 1-year plug-ins to give to their friends. For each additional user that they bring on-board, they get an additional 10 free 1-year plug-ins.
      • This technique supports the coolness of having been a Test participant because it makes the participants cooler with their close circle of contacts. The really smart ones will give free plug-ins to other sneezers and influencers. Reward this latter group for bringing on additional users.
  • Using lessons from the gaming market:
    • Shake out all issues pre-Alpha Test.
    • Conduct automated testing of the software via server farms that are set up for this.
    • Be prepared for upgrades – both in the software and in the server farms. Typically upgrades are conducted while the software and systems are live.
    • Create test localities to pre-test any upgrades to assess the impact on performance and service prior to deployment. This minimizes disruption to the broader audience.
    • Recruit, alert, and reward those who assist with these tests.
  • It is possible to conduct an unsophisticated Alpha Test, but this can’t be risked in Beta Tests.
    • Alpha testing is usually conducted as an internal exercise and lasts until all of the bugs have been identified and worked out.
    • The Beta test is then planned, with a known number of sites or users.
  • Concerning IP Protection:
    • Threats will come from two sources:
      • The iTunes types who may perceive the new offering as a threat to their markets – ones with deep pockets to keep the company busy defending its legal position.
      • International teams who rapidly clone any new technology that they find for a variety of motives. These groups tend to work from locales where IP protection is difficult to impossible.
    • IP is not secure until tested in courts. Often this involves the most innocuous aspects of the IP or software offering. In addition, big players may seek injunctions to halt service until courts resolve claimed IP conflicts.

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How Do You Manage Succession Planning? Seven Considerations

Situation: The founder and CEO of company needs to find a successor. She is ready to reduce her role but wants to assure the ongoing operation and future growth of the company, as she will remain the principal shareholder. How do manage succession planning?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Options for management succession and growth.
    • One option is to create an employee stock option plan (ESOP) to expand ownership of the company and to help recruit new managers to support growth.
    • A second option presented itself through a broker who has approached the company to help them find a buyer for the business. The broker suggests finding a customer who is a potential buyer and also the right fit.
    • A third option is to purchase a smaller company with a good CEO and then do an ESOP transaction to allow the CEO to reduce her role while providing new incentives for management.
  • Options for maintaining continuity of the business.
    • The CEO has identified an individual with the background to lead the company and identify the talent to fill key roles.
    • In addition to a leader, what other key roles must be filled? Look at the current and planned organizational charts. Determine which roles must be filled, the order of priority to fill them, and management succession plans for each.
  • When and how should the CEO’s plans and options be communicated to staff?
    • One approach is to say nothing until either a successor has been identified or an actual deal is in place. This will avoid unnecessary disruption that will accompany and news of the plans.
    • On the other hand, if an ESOP is the option, let current staff know early, along with anticipated specifics of the ESOP Plan.
    • It is best to be straight with staff once the timing has been determined. Complement disclosure of plans with assurances that the change will be good for staff and that there will be financial incentives for them to remain with the company.
    • Be sensitive to what drives and motivates staff – build this into plans to inform them of what is happening.

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