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How Organizations Get Employee Engagement Wrong

March 27, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

 

employees working

Employees now expect more. Employee engagement is key to success for most organizations. If we understand the typical and recurring mistakes made in this field, we can predict and prevent them happening to us.

Today’s guest post is by Frank Devine, author of RAPID MASS ENGAGEMENT: Driving Continuous Improvement Through Employee Culture Creation (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

The Roll-out Assumption

During a visit to one of the sites where my Rapid Mass Engagement (RME) process had been implemented, a group of senior visitors toured the site guided by a shop-floor employee who outlined the new high-performance culture. The visitors could see and feel the culture and were impressed by the ‘Behavioral Standards’ – behaviorally specific standards designed to make accountability both easy and transparent developed from employee data and created by employees. One of the visitors informed the guide that they were going to take these away and ‘roll them out’ in the visitors’ own organization.

The employee guide looked deflated and when asked why, explained:

“If you think you can roll these out, I have not explained properly how they were created … and who owns them.”

This roll-out assumption is common. In one site the employees added the following to the organization’s Behavioral Standards:

“Warning: attempts to apply these standards without the process that created them will only disappoint.”

Ownership matters and creates discretionary effort and engagement, and anything rolled-out, by definition, is not owned by those on the receiving end.

Engagement without Enablement

Imagine you do what it takes to create a highly engaged workforce, but employees then crash into overcautious and inflexible legacy systems. Our HR and Quality policies, how we recruit and promote, how early we involve end-users in the design of equipment and software can all be designed to maximize enablement, but frequently suffer from producer capture.

Failing to quickly and systematically align systems to your nascent emerging culture, will mean you have highly engaged employees, but working for another organization.

Squashing Ownership, Solution Space and Discretionary Effort with Unnecessary Standardization

Western universities and organizations dominate thinking and research in areas such as leadership and engagement. In addition, our understanding of improvement science (Lean/Six Sigma, etc., however described) means we first create standards before attempting to improve them.

Why is this a problem? I have seen many examples of corporate functions specifying the color, the size, even the font to be used in visual management.

Why do we think corporate knows best? Why carelessly disregard the mountain of goodwill, ownership and discretionary effort available by letting a thousand flowers bloom, by encouraging local people to create their own?

If you have multiple locations worldwide, allow each to design their own approaches to visual management or, as in the example above, how they codify and articulate their high-performance culture. Give them the maximum solution space and they will fill it with locally resonant and authentic words owned by the employees concerned.

Naïve Engagement

I often hear comments such as “no-one comes to work to do a bad job.” The danger is when this is followed by a logical leap such as “all we have to do is empower our teams and they will do a great job.”

In corporate life, I designed the training for CarnaudMetalbox’s Self-Directed Work Teams (called ‘Autonomous Manufacturing Teams’ in French); the key was ensuring clearly defined scope and responsibilities.

If we create a power vacuum the only thing that is certain is that the power vacuum will be filled. The hope is that a highly motivated self-directed work team will always fill this vacuum, but that cannot be relied upon. It some cases this naïve assumption led to systematic restriction of output, bullying and abuse of vulnerable employees.

Random outcomes are the opposite of high performance. Some of my work comes from helping readdress the damage caused by such policy failures which ignore everything we have learned from FMEA and Human Factors in other contexts.

Timid Engagement: Wishing the Ends without Willing the Means

An executive from a global organization who had visited a RME site contacted me.

He told me he was very impressed by the culture he had experienced on the site and the impact on quality, customer service and productivity and he wanted that for his organization.

We discussed what was involved in creating such a high-performance culture and his enthusiasm declined rapidly. This is common.

This was one of many examples of people willing the ends without the will to enact the means necessary to achieve those ends.

In the senior team diagnostic workshops that are the 1st stage of RME, it is common for at least some of the senior team to imagine that transformational outputs can be achieved with conventional ‘safe’ inputs; they can’t.

Shiny and New

I have worked with tens of thousands of employees in highly participative workshops where, in the early stages of culture change, cynicism about ‘management’ is common. Employees often tell me of an interesting coping mechanism. Having experienced a high turnover of senior leaders and initiatives they advise their peers to smile at the new leaders and make encouraging noises. They go on to say “this initiative won’t last very long and then another shiny and new initiative will be launched that we can give superficial commitment to! It seems to make them happy.”

Why exhaust yourself launching and re-launching initiatives top-down when it is possible to gain employee ownership of change and culture from the bottom-up. This will maintain the humor but also create and sustain meaningful change!

rapid mass engagement bookFrank Devine, author of RAPID MASS ENGAGEMENT: Driving Continuous Improvement Through Employee Culture Creation, founder of Accelerated Improvement, Ltd., specializes in creating a High Performance continuous improvement culture from the bottom-up.

For more information please visit https://www.acceleratedimprovement.co.uk/

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What if the future of our businesses depends upon our ability to be un-business-like?

March 13, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Why are memorial services celebrating the life of a loved one who has passed always convened around candlelight, music, and poetry and not around bright lights, PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets?

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Robert H. Lengel, author of A Place For T: Giving Voice To The Tortoise In Our Hare-Brained World (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Why are memorial services celebrating the life of a loved one who has passed or that bring communities of diverse people together after a tragedy like a human-caused tragedy or natural disaster always convened around candlelight, music, and poetry and not around bright lights, PowerPoint presentations, and spreadsheets? Memorial services are meetings around the most significant emotional and spiritual events in our lives – not about budgets or cost overruns that seem insignificant in comparison. They serve to help people who might or might not know each other find a sense of presence with change and hold hands to risk moving forward. Change always involves grieving the death of something old and mustering the courage to accept the birth of something new. I think it’s time to shed some new light on how we meet to achieve change.

Nothing would be more un-business-like than convening a business meeting in candlelight with music and poetry and nothing would be less human-like than convening a memorial service in bright lights with agendas, charts, and graphs. We need to recognize that not all meetings are the same. I think there is a practical business lesson here – at times our task requires us to be impractical and un-business-like. Those times are turning points in the life of an organization when change, creativity, and innovation become a survival necessity and people need to support each other as human beings in changing themselves.

The lesson is simple. Organizations exist at two levels of reality. The most obvious surface level represents the brightly lit performance stage on which human beings act out their defined roles. It consists of structures, organization charts, systems, goals, regulations, policies, plans, and job descriptions. These elements are visible and difficult to ignore in our day-to-day work. There is a deeper underlying level of reality, however, that is only visible in candlelight. That fragile flame reflects the spirit of loving, compassionate, forgiving, respectful, and collaborative human beings conscious of their common mortality and their insignificance in the face of the night sky. Any change strategy is more likely to be effective if we could work with these human beings and not the entrenched role players who have a stake in the status quo.

We look more like each other in candlelight than we do in the roles we play under the bright stage lights in the conference room. In this light, people are more open to change and ready to support each other in risking it. Issues like trust, poor communications, broken relationships, lack of employee engagement and buy-in, and leadership development are barriers to change that are amplified in bright light and defused in candlelight. These barriers are surface-level issues that can only be addressed at the deeper level of organizational reality. To prepare people to transcend these barriers and achieve real and sustainable change, it is necessary to reveal them as human beings beneath their business suits. Shouldn’t our meetings about change topics be more like memorial services that invite emotional and spiritual presence than agenda-controlled and facilitated meetings that intentionally deny that presence?

We need to better appreciate the effect of how we illuminate our meeting places. For decades I have been experimenting with ways to bring the spirit of candlelight into meetings where it makes sense to do so. I have just published a book entitled A Place for T: Giving Voice to the Tortoise in Our Hare-Brained World where I share my learnings. My book launch events communicate my message with a simple experience. I begin my presentation in a brightly lit room with shuttered windows. On a table in front of the room, I have lit candles. After a short PowerPoint introduction, I shut down my computer, turn out the room lights, play reflective music, and let my audience sit in silence before I continue. Now those flickering flames become the focus of attention. Then I ask them to share what they experienced with the change in lighting. They naturally get it and awaken to the deeper level of reality without me lecturing to them.

Our human consciousness is mirrored in those candle flames. They awaken the human being within us. People who sometimes feel lost, unappreciated, and alone in the roles they play, sense a call home to what they really care about. Now I can talk to an audience that is prepared to be intimately connected to what I have to say and prepared to engage in meaningful dialogue. Isn’t this what organizational leaders really want – to have employees who are intimately connected to what they have to say and fully engaged? But I fear these leaders are a bit afraid of the darkness and don’t trust what might emerge.

Lack of trust might be the biggest barrier to change. If you want trust, then trust. Creating candle lit meeting places challenges leaders to let go of the need to control and trust the natural capacities of employees to do what is right and good for the organization. As I look back on my experiences, I have developed a much greater appreciation for the potential inherent in the natural emergence of change as a product of learning and for the natural emergence of leaders as needed. In their busy lives, employees might have forgotten how to talk to each other, what conditions they need to learn together, and how to lead in their own way. But if the lighting is not blinding them to the fragile candle flame, they will help each other naturally remember that they already know these things. I have seen this emergence happen too often to ignore it. We just need to create the meeting conditions, a meeting place, that invites the conversations we need to have, not the ones we assume we should have. The most critical condition might be how the ‘place’ is illuminated. I think senior leaders need to muster the courage to occasionally turn down the house lights and risk being un-business-like in candlelight. We all look better in candlelight.

lengel bookDr. Robert H. Lengel is Associate Professor emeritus at the University of Texas at San Antonio, president of the consulting firm LeaderWork Inc., and author of the new book A Place For T: Giving Voice To The Tortoise In Our Hare-Brained World. He holds a BS and MS in aerospace engineering, an MBA, and a PhD that blended oceanography, environmental management, leadership and organizational dynamics in business. For more information, please visit www.APlaceForT.com

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Four Powerful Mindset Shifts To Help You Conquer Love, Overcome Death, And Succeed In Business

March 6, 2023/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

thinking window

These four mindset shifts can help you create winning strategies in both your business life and your personal life.

Today’s guest post is by Alex Brueckmann, author of Secrets of Next-Level Entrepreneurs (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Sitting on the balcony of our apartment in New Westminster, Canada, I hold my baby boy and reflect on the past few months. After everything that happened, I’m amazed that I made it through without breaking down mentally. I recall founding a new business while my girlfriend navigated a challenging pregnancy, and my father fought terminal cancer.

My emotions were erratic, and I felt pulled in different directions, trying to be present for my girlfriend, dad, mom, and clients all at the same time. Things spiraled downward, and my father passed away shortly before the birth of my son. I was overcome by a mix of grief and joy, and at the same time, we relocated from Germany to Canada amidst the start of a global pandemic.

This was in the Spring of 2020, and I realized that a few mindset shifts helped me navigate these challenging months. Adjusting your mindset allows you to focus on thinking smarter, more complex, with more ingenuity, and finding multiple paths to success. Let’s explore four mindset shifts that will help you succeed.

Embrace JOMO, because YOLO

The first shift is from FOMO to JOMO. The fear of missing out is that feeling when everyone around you is raving about a new artist, and you feel like the only one who hasn’t heard of them. But you buy tickets, just in case, because everyone else is doing it, and you don’t want to miss out.

If we allow fear to drive our decisions, we waste our biggest asset, our attention, on things that don’t matter. In business, this can lead to poor job performance, lack of career advancement, or even job loss. On a corporate level, FOMO can lead to “me-too” strategies, with companies copying whatever their competition does first. However, success comes from clarity, direction, and differentiation, not copying others.

To shift from FOMO to JOMO, the joy of missing out, we need to define our priorities in life and business. Writing them down helps us crystallize our thinking, understand what matters to us, and how we can achieve our goals. This becomes our go-to resource for decision-making, as we evaluate opportunities based on whether they help us reach our goals.

Overcoming Perfectionism with Speed and Agility

The second mindset shift is moving away from perfectionism and towards speed and agility. As a strategy facilitator, my role is to assist businesses in achieving their future goals. When clients ask me how long it takes to create the perfect business strategy, I tell them the truth: it’s impossible to achieve perfection. We can align a business around an 80 percent strategy and leave the remaining 20 percent for uncertainty. This gives us enough direction to get started and make progress.

In business and personal situations, we must be able to adapt quickly when unexpected events occur. When COVID-19 first hit, we had to decide: wait it out, or pull our relocation to Canada forward, and move within days. Our perfectly planned relocation had to make space for a new reality: we acted swiftly and learned as we navigated the uncertainty of moving to a new continent under lockdown conditions. Prioritizing speed and agility over perfectionism will help you move forward, learn from mistakes, and succeed over time.

From Scarcity to Abundance Thinking

The third mindset shift is from scarcity to abundance. In business, an abundance mindset is crucial for creating a winning strategy. It’s about exploring possibilities, curiosity, and daring to dream. It’s about creating hope. Allowing ourselves to be in an abundance mindset will bring about new perspectives, thoughts, and discussions that were previously unclear to us because we listen deeply and build on each other’s creativity.

Abundance also helped me deal with the emotional rollercoaster in 2020. While I traditionally dealt with my emotions by myself, I wanted to seek out additional resources this time. It might sound obvious, but my next move was a sign that I was starting to embrace an abundance mindset. I reached out to a psychologist. As an additional resource in my life, she helped me sort the emotions and embrace both joy of being a dad, while still mourning the loss of my own father.

From Fixed to Growth Mindset

The last shift is from a fixed to a growth mindset. Instead of thinking in limited terms and absolutes, a growth mindset allows us to see mistakes as learning opportunities. Instead of thinking “I failed” or “I’ll never make it,” we can find new ways of doing things and try something different without giving up. When I was younger, I had a fixed mindset, and I struggled with understanding many things. However, I realized I could do something about it and became an avid reader and embraced learning to overcome my fixed mindset.

Instead of making statements and trying to fit things into what we already know, we should ask questions like “What am I missing?” or “How could I use this negative experience and turn it into something positive?” In a growth mindset, we understand that nothing is too hard. By adding perspective and time, we can figure things out, even if we don’t know how at first.

Making Mindset Shifts Happen

How can we implement these mindset shifts in our lives and where would they be most useful? Adam Grant, a leading organizational psychologist, suggests two concepts: challenge networks and confident humility.

A challenge network is a group of people around us who can disagree with us in a constructive way, providing honest feedback without being aggressive. They help us question our assumptions, identify blind spots, and counterbalance potential weaknesses in our thinking. By building a reliable challenge network, we can tackle speed and agility in execution and learning.

Confident humility is having faith in our capabilities while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or may not be addressing the right problem. It involves having enough doubt to re-examine our old knowledge and enough confidence to pursue new insights.

Implementing these mindset shifts can have a significant impact on our lives. Embracing JOMO helped me avoid distractions in business and prioritize what mattered, resulting in more quality time with my family. Adopting an abundance mindset allowed me to see options that would have otherwise been invisible when starting a new business. A growth mindset helped me rise to the challenge of being a first-time dad in my mid-40s. Finally, speed and agility helped us avoid overthinking and instead move to Canada, even under the most challenging circumstances.

To implement these mindset shifts, we need to have faith in our capabilities while being open to new insights. By doing so, we can transform hopes and dreams into reality and create winning strategies in both business and our personal lives.

next level bookAlex Brueckmann is the founder and CEO of Brueckmann Executive Consulting, and the author of “Secrets of Next-Level Entrepreneurs” and “The Strategy Legacy” (Fall 2023). He is a keynote speaker at the intersection of business strategy, leadership, and empowerment. Brueckmann is an alumnus of EBS European Business School (Germany), and holds certificates in change management, leadership, finance, organizational development, and strategy from INSEAD (France), and Harvard Business School (USA).

For more information please visit www.AlexBrueckmann.com

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Recession Readiness for Small Businesses

February 28, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

recession

Jay Jung explains how small businesses can prepare for a recession by investing in finance and creating a restructuring plan.

Today’s guest post is by Jay Jung, Founder and Managing Partner at Embarc Advisors.

While Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has recently dismissed fears of a recession, other economists disagree. Whether or not the US is on the verge of a recession today, wise business leaders are always prepared for one.

Toward this end, a thorough understanding of your small business’s finances becomes critical. Below, I outline ways small businesses can best prepare to weather the storms of recessions.

Mastering your business’s finances

For starters, a proactive approach is better than a reactive one, so get a handle on your small business’s finances long before a recession threatens to arrive. Investing in finance gives you the ability to perceive financial difficulties in advance, which positions you best to overcome the challenges that are likely to emerge.

To gain control of your business’s finances, track your budget closely on a monthly basis. In addition, measure your cash flow carefully and develop a reliable 13-week cash-flow forecast. Make sure you can generate predictions with 95% accuracy one to two weeks in advance. That way, if your company starts not being profitable, you will understand your runway. In other words, you will know how long your current cash is likely to last.

While having a line of credit or revolver can inspire confidence, be aware that banks can change these agreements at any time. They may even “call the loan,” forcing you to unexpectedly repay the debt immediately. Make sure your corporate credit card has sufficient capacity. If your spending increases, the credit card company may request some financial due diligence, so be ready for that. Finally, have a healthy reserve of “safety cash” stashed away.

Creating a self-help restructuring plan

Before a recession hits is also the time to assemble a self-help restructuring plan. What options for economizing does your business have?

While developing this plan, keep in mind that, during a recession, additional challenges can arise for small businesses. For instance, the cost of borrowing may increase further. As the economic pain spreads, customers may pay late, vendors may require earlier payments, and inventory can be tied up for longer. This means your working capital will deteriorate. You may also see lower revenue due to lower volume or prices.

Depending on your projected runway and cash needs, consider external investment (e.g., mezzanine debt, equity injection, etc). Don’t bank on external funding, however.

I recommend keeping your marketing and sales efforts strong since these outlays allow you to control your own destiny in a recessionary environment. Relying only on word-of-mouth and referrals means you don’t know when or where your next customer is coming from.

That said, make sure you track the efficacy of these campaigns. Otherwise, you may pour valuable cash into a black box.

Don’t forget to consider the upside — your plan should include strategies for pivoting if the business environment rebounds quickly. Think of ways how can you emerge as a winner from this positive scenario.

Finally, decide on the threshold your business would hit in order to trigger various cost-saving measures. If you try to figure it out when a crisis is at your doorstep, it may be too late.

Implementing the strategy

In my experience, small businesses often take action too late. If you ever find yourself going over budget on certain items, then implement remedial measures as soon as possible. After all, a budget isn’t just wishful thinking, it’s a plan of accountability that you made and now need to adhere to.

Toward that end, review all major vendor contracts and renegotiate rates wherever and whenever possible, and cancel where applicable. Similarly, review your headcount and actual staffing needs. Avoid aggressive hiring, and don’t pursue a mentality of “growth at all costs.”

At the end of the day, strong customer relationships are what will get you through the recession, so be sure to demonstrate flexibility and work with your customers. After all, it’s better to give some concessions than lose a loyal customer.

If you do hit the threshold that your restructuring plan specifies, then rip the bandaid off and take those cost-cutting measures. As painful as this may be, it will help you avoid the death spiral.

Recessions are challenging times for every business. Position yours for success by taking control of your finances, creating a restructuring plan, and being prepared to use it.

jay jung bio pic

Jay Jung, a small business thought leader, is the founder and managing partner at Embarc Advisors and has nearly 20 years of experience in strategic finance. Jay is former Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Vice President and McKinsey & Company Engagement Manager. He currently works with startups as a fractional CFO or advises them as a consultant. Most recently, he has successfully advised on capital raises for several startups – including during the COVID-19 crisis. He also co-founded a technology startup that raised capital from Softbank and other VCs.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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How to Make “Easy Button” Career Decisions

February 13, 2023/2 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

doorbell

Finding your core values isn’t just good for guiding your life, its good for guiding your career too. 

Today’s post is by Tracy Timm, author of Unstoppable (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

When it comes to making career decisions, we’ve all been to “the dark side.”

Endless pro-con lists. Sleepless nights. Emotional rollercoasters. Circular conversations. Worrying if this is our “one shot” while simultaneously wondering if we’re settling or worth more. Trying to balance the shiny components of the offer, maintain a level head, remember to negotiate, and keep every other generic piece of career advice front of mind.

Cue confusion, anxiety, doubt, and fear.

But what if there was a way to ensure that every decision you made in your career was in your best, long-term interest? What if you could wade through the emotions and momentary elation and get down to brass tacks: Will this work for me or is this just another distraction?

In the moment, it can be so difficult to separate what really matters from how we are currently feeling. After all, no matter if we’re being offered the CEO role or a part-time consulting position, there are so many emotions at play.

It’s human nature to feel compelled to pursue something that we’re offered. Even if the offer is coming from left field (hello, Mr. CMO, would you like to design a logo for me?) there’s something about an opportunity showing up on your doorstep that begs the question: Am I supposed to take this?

Read more

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What Living in a War Zone Taught Me About Leadership

February 6, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

 

barbed wire

In Beirut, Lebanon during 1973, five-year-old Elisa A. Schmitz first learned situational awareness—a leadership lesson she says is key to being visionary.

Today’s guest post is by Elisa Schmitz, author of Become the Fire: Transform Life’s Chaos into Business and Personal Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

It was 1973 and I was living in Beirut, Lebanon, when that country was a powder keg before its civil war. I was not quite 5 years old. One day, my siblings and I were on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building, walking with my father toward school. We had recently moved to Beirut, and I was still getting used to the new culture – for example, women dressed head to toe in flowing black, their faces carefully hidden behind fabric – and the unfamiliar language that was so different from the Spanish and English we spoke at home.

Ahead on the sidewalk, two women approached – dressed in that traditional garb – but their eyes kept darting to the rooftops. Then they started to run. I saw the fear in their eyes and felt a chill down my spine. In the next instant, I heard gunshots coming from the rooftops. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle and a wave of fear crash over me as the snipers shot at a car below.

That chill and that tingling on my neck screamed danger to me, and I knew I was not safe. I felt a grownup hand yank me hard as my dad hauled us back to our apartment. Later that night, shots rang out again. I stayed up all night, thinking that if I was the one to be awake and hear the shots, I could warn everyone. I thought my being aware could help keep us safe.

Being in Beirut triggered my dad to remember the pain of his own childhood, when his family was forced to flee war-torn Yugoslavia. But at the time, all I knew was that my dad was often sad. So, I would sing and dance or tell jokes to try to get him to smile.

Situational Awareness Is Key to Becoming Visionary

Living in a war zone taught me my earliest lessons in how to read the room, how to tune into my senses, how to adapt, how to turn the situation around. Situational awareness, which is key to being visionary.

As the chaos kept coming, it became a pattern in my life. Chaos is like that; it’s rarely just one thing. Whether I was dodging bullets in Beirut or bullies at school, I learned to rely on my situational awareness.

Using my senses, that mind-body connection, I learned to fine-tune my awareness of my surroundings and detect any potential threats – and possibilities. I listened to my body and looked for its cues. If I got a funky feeling in my stomach or the hair on my arms stood up, I paid attention. What was my gut trying to tell me? When I learned to focus on these sensations, I found that they were often preparing me to deal with some impending fire – or something even greater.

That mind-body connection enables you to see opportunity. That’s what it means to be visionary. You feel with intensity, you examine your environment for information, and you see opportunities that others often don’t.

Being Visionary Makes You a Better Leader

Reading the room, tuning into your senses, figuring out what they’re telling you about a situation, trusting your instincts, then acting on them. That’s how being visionary makes you a better leader.

This knowing inside enables you to be the kind of leader who can see around the corner into opportunities, then take action to bring the possibilities to life. The more situationally aware you are, the more visionary you can be. The more visionary you are, the greater your leadership success can be.

Situational awareness was burned into me during those war-torn times, which helped me to become visionary – and a better leader. Here’s how it impacted my career:

  • Situational awareness helped me envision ways to make life better: first with seeing a need for parenting information; later, with seeing a need for credible content on mobile devices.
  • That awareness enabled me to see business opportunities: with my first company, iParenting, acquired by Disney; later, with my second company, 30Seconds.com.
  • Situational awareness spurred me to take action, bringing the visions to life and growing them into media platforms for millions of unique users.

Taking leadership meant that I didn’t sit back and wait for someone else to find solutions to problems I saw. Once I recognized those problems as opportunities, I stepped up to find solutions – myself. The more situationally aware I was, the more visionary I became.

How to Enhance Your Situational Awareness and Become Visionary

You don’t need have to have lived in a war zone to develop situational awareness. Here’s how to enhance your situational awareness so you can become more visionary:

  • Always survey your environment. Think of ways to enhance your awareness of what’s going on around you – things like tuning into your senses and being more observant.
  • Think about any challenges in your life where you wish there were solutions. Come up with opportunities you may have to make life better.
  • Remember times when you may have experienced vision in your life. How have you already envisioned ways to make life better, no matter how big or small?
  • Look around at your friends and family, your customers, your boss. What do they need? How can you serve them better? Are there tools that would make life better? Write them down.
  • Don’t just dream about a better world or making a difference. Picture what that looks like and what you can do to bring that vision to life.
  • Act on the opportunities you see. Come up with actionable ideas – things like starting a side hustle, connecting with someone in the field you’re interested in, volunteering for a cause you’re passionate about.

However you choose to enhance your situational awareness, just keep at it. As you do, your vision will grow, making you a more successful leader.

become the fire book

Elisa A. Schmitz is an award-winning Latina entrepreneur and journalist. She is the founder and CEO of 30Seconds.com, a digital media platform, and the founder of iParenting which was acquired by the Walt Disney Company. She has been a newspaper columnist, magazine editor, radio and video host, and creator of content and marketing programs for various Fortune 500 companies. She lives in the Chicago area.

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4 Essentials Every Challenger Brand Must Cultivate

February 1, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

number four

Successful challenger brands know where they stand, who they are, and how prepared they are to go to battle. They identify disruptive strategies, make distinctive promises and statements, and create and use a voice that’s unique to them.

Today’s post is by Mike Sullivan and Michael Tuggle, authors of The Voice of the Underdog: How Challenger Brands Create Distinction by Thinking Culture First (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

For those unfamiliar, challenger brands are those brands in second place, third place, seventh place, all chasing the category leader. Challengers are smaller, scrappier, and most often are brands where ambitions run high, but resources run low. Challengers cannot outspend their competition, so they outthink them instead. They start with a focused business strategy and look for opportunities to disrupt. Challenger brands don’t win by finding ways to play the game better. They win by changing it.

For every successful challenger brand, there are great examples of how they disrupted the status quo. When airlines started charging $25 a bag, Southwest Airlines said bags fly free. When fast food restaurants struggled to get orders right in the drive-thru, Chick-Fil-A built double drive-thrus and staffed them with smiling, helpful, appreciate people who took, checked, and double checked the accuracy of your order with a “my pleasure” at the end. When Blockbuster insisted people loved their neighborhood video rental store and would never go anywhere else, Netflix said we’ll see about that.

Disruption is the calling card for successful challenger brands. Take for example Franzia wines, and their beloved Charles Shaw Chardonnay affectionately known at Trader Joe’s and beyond as “Two Buck Chuck.” At the 2007 California Fair Wine Competition, Charles Shaw’s $2 Chardonnay beat out 350 other chardonnays in a blind taste test — some priced as high as $55 a bottle. So what did Franzia do to the price after winning the most prestigious wine competition in North America? Nothing. Two Buck Chuck stayed at $2 a bottle. When asked why, Charles Shaw winemaker Fred Franzia replied, “We choose to sell good quality wine for $2 a bottle because we think it’s a fair price. We think the other people are charging too much.” Disruption epitomized.

What every challenger brand needs

For challenger brands to lean into disruption and take on their stronger competitors, here are four essentials:

  1. A challenger strategy– To win, challenger brands have to devise a marketing strategy that challenges category conventions and doesn’t simply imitate the moves of the leader or other successful category competitors. Apple didn’t try to out-IBM IBM. Burger King can’t out-McDonald’s McDonald’s. Challenger brands never win by mimicking the category leaders. They win by challenging category convention and attracting the consumers drawn to that disruption.

Leadership teams for authentic challenger brands evaluate the competitive landscape with an eye toward changing something fundamental about the way they approach the business. In doing so, they create a new and distinctive competitive advantage. When this is accomplished successfully, it creates a new and clear path for a unique marketing strategy. Franzia could have marketed his Charles Shaw Chardonnay the way the category competitors did, but he would have missed a significant opportunity for category distinction.

  1. Challenger promises– Challenger brands must also make brand promises that aren’t easily duplicated by competitors. The promise must be solidly grounded in realdifferences created by the company’s state of mind — something it does best or is striving earnestly to do best. The key for success is that the promise must be authentic. It can’t simply be manufactured through advertising.

The authentic difference for the Charles Shaw brand isn’t that it’s an award-winning Chardonnay. The distinction is the company’s ability to sell it profitably for $2 a bottle, and its willingness — even desire — to do so. In a category driven by price breaks and promotions, Chick-Fil-A embraces neither. It promises and delivers exceptional products and service, and believes it’s worth the cost. Its customers agree and, as a result, in 2021 its stores averaged $5.9 million in sales doing business six days a week.

  1. Challenger statements– Challenger brands must be willing to make clear and compelling statements about what they are and what they’re not, who they’re for and who they’re not for. Famous challenger brands such as Red Bull, Southwest Airlines, and Motel 6 are very specific about what they have to offer and who they’re for. They’re also not afraid to position themselves clearly away from customer groups that aren’t in their crosshairs. Red Bull isn’t for ladies having a soda over lunch. Southwest Airlines isn’t for people who like to fly first class. Motel 6 most assuredly isn’t for the traveler who wants something more than a clean room at a great price.

Challenger brands aren’t afraid to limit their appeal at the expense of alienating those who will merely tolerate them. They’re laser focused on those who will love them. The benefit for the challenger brand is a fervently loyal core customer base.

  1. A challenger voice– Challenger brands are willing to amplify their strategies, brand promises, and statements through a unique voice. Their advertising and marketing communications look and sound different from their competitors. They say different things, make different promises, and command a different kind of attention in the marketplace. The state of readiness present in challenger brand leadership not only paves the way for unique and unconventional marketing and advertising, it compels them to seek it out.

Successful challenger brands know where they stand, who they are, and how prepared they are to go to battle. They identify disruptive strategies, make distinctive promises and statements, and create and use a voice that’s unique to them. Just as crucially, they embrace their company culture as a distinct advantage. Changing the game isn’t an easy proposition, but when you build a team that feels empowered, supported, inspired, and even loved, there’s no limit to the havoc you can create for your competitors and the success you can achieve as a challenger hungry to change the world.

underdog bookMike Sullivan is president and CEO of LOOMIS, the country’s leading challenger brand advertising agency. For more than 30 years, he’s helped some of the country’s most successful companies build their brands. Michael Tuggle is an award-winning creative director and writer with more than 25 years in the ad world building brands and growing companies. Their new book is The Voice of the Underdog: How Challenger Brands Create Distinction by Thinking Culture First (BizComPress, Aug. 10, 2020). Learn more at theloomisagency.com.  

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Sisters, Service, and Sales

January 23, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Sales, Training /by Trevor Jones

customer

Customer service that is focused on customer relationships will impact your ability to make sales and to improve your business.

Today’s post is by Kate Edwards, author of Hello! And Every Little Thing That Matters (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

There is a scene in the Tina Fey/Amy Pohler film “Sisters” that is hilarious. The scene takes place in the dressing room of a trendy shop where the eponymous sisters go shopping for dresses for a party they are hosting that night. They go to a boutique and try on a number of party dresses, but they are clearly clueless. Each dress the sisters put on is completely unflattering as they wear the dresses in all sorts of inappropriate ways.

The shop clerk watches them in deadpan horror and her face expresses what we are all thinking: each dress is worse than the next. The clerk, however, doesn’t help them put the dresses on correctly or offer them sizes that fit; rather, she says “that looks amaaaazing” in a completely flat tone. This character is the epitome of the lackluster clerk who clearly has been told to compliment the customers. No. Matter. What.

Service that is inauthentic, unhelpful or pushy is the stuff of horrible Yelp reviews and comedic movie scenes. But service doesn’t have to be like that. Businesses that take time to connect authentically to their customers will build a client for life. And businesses that ignore service in the sales moment are doing themselves great harm as sales are based on a human connection. Here are some easy ways to connect with your customers that will make the sisters of your business – service and sales – shine.

Establish Customer Quotas, Not Sales Quotas

Too many businesses focus on the number of sales rather than the number of customers. You must remember that customers make sales. Ask your salespeople to create relationships with every type of customer – not just the ones they already know.

Read more

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My CEO Career: Workplace Culture My Biggest Lesson

January 16, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership /by Trevor Jones

adjusting tie

Learn how an award-winning CEO transformed a once struggling organization by improving its workplace culture.

Today’s guest post is by Thane Lawrie, author of The Buddhist CEO (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

In this article I will tell you an interesting story about how I became a successful CEO and what I believe was my biggest lesson. I have just published a book called The Buddhist CEO, but in many ways I was the accidental CEO.

Ten years ago, I joined a large not-for-profit organization in my native Scotland. I was in charge of all their daily frontline operations and was part of a four-person senior leadership team. Four months into the job, our then CEO died suddenly due to a very unexpected illness. Cutting a very long story short, this resulted in me becoming the CEO.

It was clear to me that the organization was in some difficulty at the time. It had made significant financial losses for two years running, staff morale was low, and our services didn’t perform anywhere near the level they should. Some people might have said I had inherited a poisoned chalice. However, I was able to turn the organization around quickly. In my first year in charge, we made a small profit, staff morale increased significantly and our services started to dramatically improve.

How did I know things were improving? Improvements to the finances were easy to monitor by analysing our management accounts, but how did I know morale was improving? I decided that if the organization was to improve, we needed to boost staff morale. How could we expect staff to provide fantastic services if they didn’t enjoy their job? I set up meetings with different staff groups and asked them directly about what they liked and didn’t like about the company. Clear themes emerged. Staff really wanted to work for us as they loved the idea of helping people. We were a not-for-profit organization helping people to stay warm in their homes and were involved in other environmental projects. Our staff wanted to help people, but they felt our company got in the way.

They were unclear how their job contributed to the company, managers were reluctant to take decisions, nothing worked, the IT was useless, our company cars were old and broken, our phone system was frustrating to use, and they had no idea where the company was heading strategically. In the office, people were not always nice to each other as they were just so frustrated. I realized quickly that our workplace culture was awful and if we were ever to become a high functioning organization we needed to make significant changes and quick.

This was when I started to learn my biggest lesson as a CEO. Workplace culture matters and if it is broken then your organization will never be as successful as it could and should be. I set about fixing the structural issues first. A complete overhaul of our IT, company vehicles and telephone system. This was a big call at the time, after making such heavy losses for two years prior. The board took some persuading that spending more money was the way to go. The impact of this act alone was huge. Staff felt they were being listened to and they could see that things were now working.

I then set about trying to change the culture. I introduced the term ‘world class culture’ into our meetings, our policies and strategies. This lifted the aspirations of staff. I am not sure we ever became world class, but I am certain that just by introducing the notion that we were trying to deliver everything we do internally and externally, at a level that could be described as world class, raised everyone’s game. Our performance went from okay to very good/excellent. This resulted in more contracts coming our way, as partner organizations could tell they could trust us to deliver.

We then brought in an HR specialist to help us train our managers in how to be better leaders. I empowered them to take decisions on their own with clear instructions on when they had to push a decision up to their senior manager. In conjunction with staff, we developed company values that we agreed as a company and then held people to these values. We treated people well but we expected them to treat the company well. This meant that when a staff member clearly wasn’t acting in line with our company values, we intervened and addressed the behaviours being shown.

I believed the culture was changing from negative to positive, but how could I be sure? I decided to measure our culture and we entered the prestigious Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to work for in the UK awards. Why? As part of our entry, staff had to complete an anonymous survey asking them for their view on the company’s leadership, strategy, terms and conditions, ethos, their team, their manager and how we looked after their wellbeing. Every year we got a score which was benchmarked against other companies. Over time we could build up a picture of our culture through this and other measurements we used. To my surprise and delight, we were listed in the top 100 companies to work for in the UK during 6 of the 7 years I was in charge.

This is a brief outline of how I transformed a company. None of this was easy and it takes time and effort to really engage with your staff. In my experience though, it is always worthwhile putting this level of focus on your staff as they will go on to help your company thrive and achieve great success.

The person at the top sets the tone, so make that tone a positive and inspirational one. Put time and energy into developing an aspirational and supportive workplace culture. In my novel The Buddhist CEO, the main character sets out to lead like a Buddhist CEO, applying a compassionate and caring approach towards his staff. It brings his company great rewards, but he still faces great challenges.

the buddhist CEO

Thane Lawrie was CEO of an organization called Scarf, in his native Scotland, and is now an author. He recently published his first novel, The Buddhist CEO (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Thane also writes a regular blog on his website. You can follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BuddhistCeo or visit his website at https://www.thanelawrie.com/.

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Fostering an Ownership Mentality to Boost Your Business

January 9, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

coworkers at laptop

Employees are driven to perform their best when they feel a sense of ownership over their work. Fostering a company culture driven by a ‘we’re all in this together’ mindset is easy – here are 10 actionable strategies.

Today’s post is by Shaara Roman, author of The Conscious Workplace: Fortify Your Culture to Thrive in Any Crisis (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

When you think of an entrepreneur, you think of someone who is constantly hustling. They’re highly invested in their work, extremely driven, innovative, and agile. Now, wouldn’t it be great if all employees operated like that?

Of course you want your employees to work for you the way they would work for themselves…and it’s possible. By nurturing an ownership mentality, you can create a team of people who are genuinely invested in the ongoing success of the business. Your employees are more likely to go above and beyond when they understand how their contributions impact the success of the company — and how that success in turn impacts them.

Benefits of fostering an ownership mentality:

  • Higher engagement rate
  • Increased retention
  • Boosted innovation
  • More autonomy
  • Improved collaboration
  • Higher client/customer satisfaction
  • Better bottom line

Some people come to work with this attitude — this desire to give it their all because they’re genuinely invested and they know it will pay off. But the majority of employees tend to be more disconnected, with a mindset of simply getting the job done. So how do you get your employees to shift from thinking like an employee to thinking like an owner who is fully vested in the success of the business? Sure, you can foster ownership by ensuring employees have some skin in the game by offering financial incentives, but there are also several other ways to make that happen as well.

1. Model a win-win mentality

Adopt an abundance mindset and commit to the notion that there is enough to go around. Too often our talent programs pit people against each other and foster competition versus collaboration. Show your employees that the successes of the business are directly related to the individual — made possible by their hard work and also to be enjoyed by them. When the company thrives, the individual thrives, and vice versa.

2. Empower your people

Give your employees the authority and information to make meaningful decisions. Demonstrate your trust in their competence and refrain from micromanaging. The more empowered each individual feels, the more likely they are to feel engaged in the day-to-day and connected to the big picture.

3. Value your employee’s work

Be sure to regularly express praise and appreciation for all the hard work your team does, both on an individual and collective level. Positive reinforcement is a proven method, and the more you encourage your employees with words of affirmation, the more likely they are to want to continue to meet those standards. In fact, Gallup research shows that you should recognize people for their contributions at least every seven days.

4. Ask for each individual’s input

By asking your team for their input, you show them that you really care about what they have to say. Everyone wants to feel heard, and we all perform better when we have a say in what we’re doing / how we’re doing it. You can even go further and seek out employee input to the company’s strategy and new services or products.

5. Keep everyone in the loop

Communication is key, and it tends to go a long way. The more transparent you are with your employee-facing communications, the more included your people will feel. If your employees feel in the dark about the goings-on of the company, then they will feel disconnected from their work, their results, and their drive.

6. Foster inclusion and belonging

Creating a strong sense of community has all kinds of benefits. Prioritize your culture and your people, and you will see a team-driven work ethic emerge. When your employees feel accepted and connected to each other, they operate more like a family. ‘What’s good for you is good for me’ will start to be a common denominator, and this will show up in all that your employees do.

7. Give your employees a sense of purpose

People need purpose — it’s what drives us. When you show your employees that their work is meaningful and that their contribution is invaluable, they will care about what they’re doing. They will put their heart and soul into it, rather than getting by with the bare minimum. Establish a clear mission/vision/values and explain why it’s so important to the bigger picture and greater good.

8. Hold people accountable for their commitment to the team

Teamwork makes the dream work. Without the belief that ‘we’re all in this together’, there will likely be dysfunction and more self-centered behaviors. When those types of behaviors arise, it’s important to course correct by holding people accountable to a higher, team-oriented standard.

9. Hire individuals who already have a sense of ownership over their work

This ‘sense of ownership’ attitude is contagious, and the more people on your team who feel this sense of ownership, the more likely they are to inspire others to adopt the same approach. While such a mindset can certainly be trained, it is of course easier when you’re working with people who are already inclined to think that way.

10. Minimize meaningless rules

Nobody likes having to jump through hoops. The more useless rules and protocols you have built into your organization, the further removed your employees are from having a sense of ownership. Ditch the needlessly rigid processes and instead emphasize trust and autonomy.

The relationship between employer and employed tends to be strictly transactional. By shifting that standard towards a more genuine sense of mutual care, you can ensure a higher level of success for your organization. Your greatest power lies in your people, you just have to shift the tone from the individual to the collective. Once your employees feel invested in the team, you will start to see a ripple effect.

the conscious workplace bookShaara Roman is the author of The Conscious Workplace: Fortify Your Culture to Thrive in Any Crisis and founder + CEO of boutique culture consulting firm, The Silverene Group. She works with executives to align their company’s leadership and culture with the business strategy and create programs to maximize the employee experience and productivity.

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The Best Leaders Are Comedians

January 2, 2023/1 Comment/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

 

two people laughing

Leaders can learn a lot from comedians. They’re captivating public speakers, they practice economy of language, and they’re experts at insight. Insight is a critical leadership skill.

Today’s post is by Antonio Garrido, author of MY DAILY LEADERSHIP: A Powerful Roadmap For Leadership Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s the leader’s job to joke their way through the difficulties of the day. Nor am I saying that the leader’s job is to find something to lampoon in order to amuse others.

No, my argument is this: comedians are experts at insight: they are wonderful at drawing seemingly unrelated pieces of information together in new and unexpected ways. The best leaders have a similar gift: they have the ability to ‘see beyond the data’ and notice patterns, trends, or truths that nobody else sees. And then, like comedians, when they draw attention to the path of their particular perspective, suddenly everyone else sees it too – this is insight in action.

Comedy is Insight in Action

Have you ever noticed how often comedians say, “Have you ever noticed how…?”?

Have you ever noticed how…

you’re never quite sure whether it’s okay to eat green crisps.

triangle sandwiches taste so much better than square ones.

you’ll always pour a glass of water from the sink faucet, but never ever the bath faucet.

“Have you ever noticed how…?” is an example of cultural referencing and looking at the world from a different perspective. Comedians are brilliant at finding ways to come up with a new way of perceiving the world. We don’t see insight till we see it, and then once we do, we can’t ever unsee it. The best leaders do the same. The best leaders use insight to see what others don’t or can’t yet.

Great Leadership is Also Insight in Action

If real leadership is about ‘future proofing’ (future proofing themselves, their people, and their business), then the ability to see the as-yet unseen or unrevealed is critical. This is why Steve Jobs insisted the iMac was launched in four bright colors (not beige), because he realized color is a critical way for people to express themselves. Insight. This is why Bata Shoes opened a shoe factory in Africa where nobody wore shoes, because they saw a potential opportunity where every other shoe manufacturer saw, well, a market where nobody wore shoes. Insight. And this is why Sam Walton of Walmart insisted on building superstores between towns, and not in them, because of lower rates and fewer competitors. Insight.

Insight, as comedians will tell you, can be developed. And you can’t get more insightful without getting more creative. Creative insight is what we’re after. The most creative leaders are, at their core, playful – playing with ideas and scenarios and messages. Great leaders have creativity sessions actually scheduled on their weekly calendar.

Take a look in your calendar right now. Go to next week. How many scheduled, blocked-off slots are there for “thinking” or “creative time” or “idea generation?” How many?

Count again. None? Exactly.

What you should see in your calendar is forty-five minutes peppered here and there for blue-sky thinking and ideation. Or even better, five minutes every morning and evening dedicated to creative thinking in your Leadership Journal. If you don’t make time for creativity, for insight development, you’ll find a million less important tasks to do.

As the extraordinarily insightful Maya Angelou once said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.”

Lighthearted, Not Lightweight

The best leaders, like comedians, are lighthearted, not lightweight: we often confuse the two, but there’s a difference.

I’ll never forget how one of the best leaders that I ever had the pleasure of working for always took time to start every speech with an amusing anecdote or observations (insight). He used this insight skill to great effect too when studying a lengthy balance sheet, or considering the salient KPIs of a particularly complex plan.

He would even charge the HR departments to specifically identify candidates who would test high for insight when recruiting new leaders.

Here’s an example of how this inspirational leader would begin a typical meeting. How’s this for the opening line of an annual general board meeting to announce that year’s performance? It’s probably important to note that the company was a world-leading lock-maker with global revenues of around 100 billion.

He began, “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending our annual general meeting. It’s a little-known fact that my entire work life has been involved in security in one way or another. You probably don’t know this, but my first ever job was selling security alarms door to door. I was really, really good at it. I’d knock and if there was no one at home, I’d always leave a brochure on the kitchen table. They’d call me right away.”

Okay, so that’s not the best joke you ever heard, but for that particular audience it was the perfect opener to a discussion that would at times, he knew, be rather difficult. It probably goes without saying that this particular leader was a master at insightful strategy development.

Insight is a Key Leadership Differentiator

In terms of leadership, insight is one of the key differentiators – it separates the best from the rest. Insight allows the leader to peek into the future and helps them to start creating a pathway into it today.

Too many leaders rely on their intellect, or experience, or tried and tested methodologies. Unfortunately, though, the future is increasingly uncertain. This means that new directions and new and uncertain futures will require, if anything, new insights. Wayne Gretzky skated to where the puck is going to be, and not to where it is now – and that’s the leader’s job too. Intellect and experience might have got you here, but insight, will get you there.

In closing, comedian George Burns probably said it best: “Look to the future – because that is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”

garrido bookAntonio Garrido, author of MY DAILY LEADERSHIP: A Powerful Roadmap For Leadership Success, has over twenty-five years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses. He is a serial entrepreneur, successful business coach, author, and charismatic speaker.

For more information, please visit www.MyDailyLeadership.com

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The Human Dimension – The Forgotten Element of Performance Measurement (PM)

December 19, 2022/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

office presentation

The Leadership Driven Method to Performance Management can help senior leaders in the public and not-for-profit sectors make informed decisions and meet their strategic goals. 

Today’s post is by Bryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty, authors of THE LEADERSHIP-DRIVEN METHOD TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: The How-To Book on Improving Performance Measurement In The Public And Not-For-Profit Sectors (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

While many articles and approaches focus on the science of Performance Measurement, meaning the step-by-step methodology, and the business processes required to analyze, interpret, report, and the quality of performance measures, this article will focus on the human side or the art of performance measurement.

What are the requirements for employees to fully participate and effectively use the PM System?

The first requirement is to understand the context of performance measurement. In other words what is a Business Plan and why is it important to performance measurement. Well, the answer is easy. The Business Plan provides the strategic direction of the organization in terms of its vision, mission, and objectives. It also provides a framework for decision making so that all decisions support the achievement of the strategic direction of the organization. But, in order to be effective each employee needs to know where they fit and how they contribute to the organization in terms of their function and daily work. Also, the Business Plan provides the standards against which the performance is measured. Without understanding the purpose and their fit within the business plan, the staff member has no context to understand the need or benefits of PM.

So, what is PM?

The next requirement is to understand performance measurement. The most frequent misunderstanding is that it is performance appraisal. It is Not. Many people confuse performance appraisal at the individual level with performance measurement at the organizational level. These are distinct concepts. A collection of individuals working as a group in an organization can achieve dramatic results. But no one person at any level, is responsible for overall organizational performance in isolation from their peers. Dispelling this myth makes performance measurement an innovative and positive force for creativity and achievement.

For our purposes we will define Performance Measurement as a management system – an ongoing process that provides a balanced, methodical attempt to assess the effectiveness of an organization’s operations from multiple vantage points – financial, client satisfaction, internal business and innovation/learning. It is used to provide feedback at all levels – strategic, tactical or operational – on how well strategies and plans are being met. This performance information is necessary to improve decision making within the organization, to enable proactive problem correction and to promote continuous improvement.

Why bother with Performance Measurement?

Performance measurement provides a framework for decision making to:

improve resource utilization,

demonstrate accountability,

facilitate excellent programs/services,

ensure motivated and productive employees,

enable a high level of employee client cooperation and coordination,

allow for the use of innovative best practices, and

provide the ability to deal with unexpected challenges or emergencies.

In short, it is a navigation system that helps management and staff adapt their operations to meet the goals of the organization while adjusting processes to the ever changing requirements in finances, programs, client needs, etc.

Organizations are constantly bombarded with ongoing changes to their finances, personnel, strategies and initiatives. Their external environments, especially client requirements and economic and political changes, are also in constant evolution.

So how does an organization move towards its strategic direction as outlined in its business plan when the foundation upon which it was built keeps shifting. The answer is the PM System. It acts as a navigation System allowing the organization to steer around the changing shoals of business.

How to break down resistances to a threatening project?

A performance measurement system can be perceived as very threatening to staff. In order to break down resistances, a process-oriented approach should be used. This process-oriented approach to developing and implementing a PM system ensures its acceptance through a gradual process of change in organizational culture. Stakeholders begin to understand that the focus is on identifying and dealing with issues that are interfering with attainment of the organizational mission, linking business plans with operational decision making, and on identifying and rewarding achievement within the organization.

As the development process continues, stakeholders in the organization shift their attitudes from awareness to understanding and from acceptance to use of the PM system. Over time this approach allows the development of an organizational culture that values and supports balanced and comprehensive feedback as an essential element in both rewarding achievement and providing the information necessary for effective business and operational decision making.

Is there a code of conduct used to develop and operate the PM System?

Organizations often make decisions based upon an implied set of values. The challenge of this approach is that implied values or principles can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. The LDM (Leadership Driven Method) approach to performance measurement requires that principles be defined, stated and communicated to the entire organization. These principles provide a code of conduct that govern behaviour for the development, implementation and operation of the PM system.

There are numerous techniques that gradually reduce/eliminate resistances and increase ownership of the PM system, the most important being ongoing leadership. Senior management must be directly involved and charged with communication to promote understanding and acceptance and provide financial support. These interventions create a climate of acceptance within the organization by stressing the importance of performance measurement and the need for staff to participate and cooperate fully in this endeavour.

LDM bookBryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty are the authors of THE LEADERSHIP-DRIVEN METHOD TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: The How-To Book on Improving Performance Measurement In The Public And Not-For-Profit Sectors. They are also co-founders of BPC Management Consultants, a client-centered, management-consulting firm based in Ottawa.

For more information, please visit www.bpcgallery.com.

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