Employee morale is something that no business can ignore. It is something that greatly impacts employee performance, especially in a sales environment. Sales environments can, by their very nature, be very stressful and it falls to the managers to ensure that morale is kept up and performance optimized. Many managers are aware of this and create performance related incentives to their sales staff, including bonuses, nights out or even weekends away. While this can be a very positive way of improving employee morale, many managers are unaware how their day to day behavior impacts their sales staff, thereby effectively nullifying the positive boost the incentives create.

Reasons Managers Micromanage

The reason for this is that many sales managers still use micromanagement as what they perceive to be an effective management tool. This is a method that just does not work. Contrary to what the managers are attempting to do, their micromanagement results in poor morale and disheartened employees.

It is all too common for sales staff to be faced with managers who will lean over their shoulder every morning to pick apart their daily activities, frequently commenting and criticizing on the lack of sales made before bombarding the salesperson with phrases like, “You need to make more calls”.  Following this, salespeople are confronted with requests for hourly updates on their activities and criticism when they have not completed certain tasks.

Why Managers Shouldn’t Micromanage

Micromanaging employees in this way leaves them feeling pressured and demotivated, causing them to become less involved in their work and distance themselves from their manager. In the worst case this leads to staff solely working for their pay check, leaving their enthusiasm at the door resulting in little or no productivity.

To avoid this situation, managers need to change their attitudes and rethink their techniques. Setting goals for your sales staff and encouraging them to work under their own initiative should help make your staff feel empowered and more positive in their work. Providing positive reinforcement and encouraging them to come to you for advice rather than just bombarding them with it will make your staff feel more confident in your abilities as a manager. With this confidence they will be more inclined to approach you with any problems they may be facing rather than stay silent and become more demoralized.

By feeling less restricted and more empowered, staff will be less stressed and employee morale should remain high. In this situation, the incentives you originally put forward will have their desired effect and your sales staff should become a more productive, cohesive team.

—————————————————-
Mandy Leonard is a co-founder of Enabled IT, which specializes in working in partnership with clients to provide a customer centric recruitment solution. With experience in both the recruitment and technical sector, she has specialized in sales and management training to optimize the abilities of sales forces. For more information please visit www.mandyleonard.com or e-mail contact@mandyleonard.com

“The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice whether they are or not.” William Feather

Who are the difficult or negative people in your life? Do you have to work, manage, or live with negativists, whiners and complainers? They are one of the most common difficult personalities in the workforce today. And managing workplace negativity is a skill in itself.

Believe it or not, research shows negativists, also known as whiners and complainers, have a strong need to be liked. They think that by complaining about how much work they have to do, they’ll gain empathy from others. Notice how these people often spend more time complaining than working? “Busy doing nothing” is how people describe the whiners and complainers in my leadership training workshops.

It pays to be tactfully direct whether you’re managing a whiner in the workplace, or just dealing with a difficult co-worker. For example, consider saying the following to a complainer co-worker, “Chris, I realize this is something you want to discuss, and at the same time I want to make sure I get back to work. It sounds like this situation with so-and-so really bothers you. If I were you, I’d take it up directly with that person. Besides, I’d prefer not to get in the middle of it.” Make sure your tone is tactful and polite, yet firm. Usually these whiners and complainers will move on to a more “captive audience.”

Managing Negativity in the Workplace Means Not Allowing The Behavior To Continue

If you’re managing a negative person, address the issue tactfully, yet promptly and directly. For example, say to them privately, “Chris, I want to bring something to your attention. You may not realize it, but when you come in here first thing at 8:00 a.m. and complain about our new policy, it’s beginning to look like a lot of negativity. I just wanted to mention it to you because you may not be aware of how you’re perceived.” They may be fully aware, explain it to them anyway!

As a manager or supervisor, you don’t want to be seen as enabling the behavior. Consider the effect it’ll have on other people if you don’t do anything about it. In managing negativity in the workplace, you have to look at the impact the difficult employee’s behavior is having on the morale of others.

If you’re managing whiners and complainers, or anyone for that matter, make certain never to criticize via email first. There is no tone or body language in an email message. The written word is often louder than the spoken word. Either meet with the employee in person, or on the phone discussing the issue with them as a live person. Don’t leave a message. As a manager or supervisor, you set the standard. If your difficult employee is going to react, better they react to YOU in person, or on the phone, as opposed to everyone else around them in the workplace. You certainly want to leave a paper trail by following up with an email, but don’t start off with email.

If you’re working with a difficult person, but not directly managing them, remember that negativists want to whine to people who will buy in to what they’re complaining, or gossiping about. When that happens, you’ve now got two individuals feeding off of each other. The people who allow the complainer to take over the conversation feel angry with themselves afterward for allowing it to happen. They sense they enabled the behavior because they’re “people pleasers” who can’t say no.

If this is you, it pays to practice role-playing with a friend who can give you honest feedback. How did you come across? Were you too tentative or too aggressive? What did your body language and tone of voice say about you? In face-to-face communication, body language accounts for 55% of what others believe about you. Tone of voice accounts for 38% and words only 7%.

In managing negativity in the workplace, I used to tell my employees to be tactfully direct with a negative, whiner/complainer co-worker. As a manager, I certainly did speak privately with the difficult employee, but my team members also had to do their part. Be careful not to internalize everything these difficult people say to you. Most likely,  there is something going on with them. As a result, they’ve decided to take it out on everyone else! And your employees have a right to come to work and enjoy it.

Consider writing your true feelings about this difficult, negative person in a journal. Make certain to leave it in your car. This is not the kind of documentation you would want them to see! When you arrive home, tear up the pages or burn them.  This signals that you are not letting their behavior affect you. Because the person who constantly angers you – controls you.

Don't allow whiners, complainers, or cryers in your workforce

—————————————————-
Colleen Kettenhofen is a speaker, workplace expert, & co-author of “The Masters of Success,” as featured on the Today Show, along with Ken Blanchard and Jack Canfield. For free articles, e-newsletter, or to order the book visit www.ColleenSpeaks.com Topics: leadership, success, difficult people, public speaking. Colleen is available for keynotes, breakout sessions and seminars. www.ColleenSpeaks.com

Jane and Bob understand that establishing criteria for successful performance is key to ensure that they get the performance they want.  Yet they’ve found that their colleagues in other departments don’t set up criteria from the get-go.

Why?

Managers often do not know how to establish meaningful criteria for job performance, let alone extras like training and development.

To establish performance criteria, Jane and Bob ask themselves, “What are the conditions for satisfaction?  How will we know the project, task, training, development was successful?  How will we know the work has been completed and done satisfactorily?”

For example, when Jane and Bob send Roy for training, how will they know if Roy’s training gives them a good ROI? What do they need Roy to learn, absorb, or implement because of the training he took?  (And Jane and Bob know that if they can’t determine what the outcome should be, they shouldn’t send Roy to this training.)

What factors do we include in objective criteria?

You’ve seen these before, and they should start becoming second nature:

1.  Time line – all objectives must include a by-when date
2.  Specifics – what you’re looking for – specific to the task and conditions of satisfaction
3.  Metrics – all objectives need to be measurable

For example, Angelina is the Accounting Manager and needs the current month closed by the 5th of the following month. The time line is meeting the deadline of the 5th of the month (that one is easy), but now Angelina must decide what the conditions of satisfaction are.  For this task, two conditions are (1) all data recorded, and (2) zero mistakes.  So if her department meets the deadline, but the information is incorrect or incomplete, the conditions of satisfaction have not been met.  Just having an objective of meeting the 5th of the month deadline is not enough.

Meatless Objectives

Often we create objectives that have no meat to them because they are arbitrary, open to interpretation by others, and have no true measurement to them.  Let’s discuss some examples of arbitrary objectives and measurable objectives.

Arbitrary and open to interpretation:

1. Update the database by the end of the month.
2. Develop your people, I’d like to see some of them moving into leadership roles down the road.
3. Create a marketing plan.
4. Yes, you can hire two people for your group.
5. Write a quarterly plan for your department and give it to me by early June.

Measurable and specific examples:

1. The database needs to be updated by the end of the month.  This database must include all information from the other three databases, the data scrubbed for accuracy, and you must do it with your current staff.
2. The organization needs to be constantly looking at succession planning.  For this to happen, you as a manager need to be working on developing your people into leaders. Let’s discuss specifics of who you think has potential and in what areas, and how you propose strengthening their skills.
3. Create a marketing plan for the web site, which is nothing more than an online brochure.  You have $50K for this project.  I’d like a specific plan of what you propose we do, what is the expected ROI on each of our options, and the costs.  And I’d like this completed by July 31.
4. You want to hire two people for your group.  While I’m not opposed to the idea, here’s what I need from you:  job descriptions, a plan for interviewing and hiring (for instance, do you intend to use a recruiting firm and what is the cost), and milestones for them for the first 30, 60, and 90 days of their employment.  Also, how do you intend to train them or ‘bring them up to speed’ on the organization’s ways of doing things?
5. By June 5 write a plan for your department for the time frame July – September.  Included in your plan should be specific objectives and goals for you, your team, and individuals.  Since your area is customer service, how are you measuring customer service (as an example)?

Final thoughts from Jane and Bob

Don’t leave performance to chance and then be disappointed. Be crystal clear about what you want, by when, and the conditions of satisfaction.  If you are not clear about these things, other people won’t be clear, and you’ll be opening yourself to frustration, disappointment, delays, and morale issues.

—————————————————-
Linda Finkle, CEO of INCEDO GROUP, works with innovative leaders around the world who understand that business needs a new organizational growth style. These innovative leaders know that powerful cross-functional communication is the highest priority and the strongest strategy for building organizational effectiveness. To find out more, visit: www.IncedoGroup.com

Goleman showed that the benefits of developing Emotional Intelligence skills are quantifiable.(1) This true story illustrates the impact on the bottom line.

Joe’s Story

Joe (not his real name) works as the Director of Engineering for a company that invents methods to improve refining processes and oil extraction. They then lease the patents on those methods to oil companies. Recently, Joe was able to put his EI skills into practice and help his company’s bottom line.

Joe was on his way to South America to talk to a customer who wanted to renew their contract with one exception, reducing the original $15 million contract to only $13 million. On the flight down, Joe was feeling anxious and worried about the meeting. After all, $2 million in revenue and an important customer relationship were on the line.

Recognizing his anxiety, Joe applied a few simple EI techniques he’d been taught to transform those feelings into more positive, productive thoughts and emotions. He was able to develop several positive alternative ideas, which he could put on the table at the meeting.

The meeting went fairly well, but there was one person from the client’s company who was picking over the contract details, seemingly trying to thwart the whole negotiation process.

Again drawing on his EI training, Joe avoided becoming defensive and expressing frustration, handling his own emotional reactions to the man’s objections well. He ended up convincing the oil company to agree to additional services and process improvements and to sign a contract several million dollars over the original contract.

Emotional Intelligence is not about being soft. It’s about a different way of being smart. It’s about managing yourself and using your emotions to positively lead others; to engage not just their head and hands, but also their hearts.

Putting EI Into Action

You feel the effects of emotional turmoil daily. What can you do? You can take action to develop your own emotional intelligence.

First, enhance your emotional self-awareness by asking yourself several times each day, “What am I feeling right now?” Notice that the question is not “how” but “what” because we tend to answer the question “How am I feeling?” with the word “Fine” which tells us nothing.

When you figure out what you’re feeling (such as anxiety, happiness, anger, excitement) you can use that information to help you decide what you should do or not do next. In other words, you can make more effective decisions.

Second, begin to disclose and discuss your feelings. If you have an issue on the table, and you find that you are feeling a bit anxious or concerned about it, simply recognize those feelings and share them in a matter-of-fact fashion. So often, if people are feeling anxious, they’ll criticize, or find some detail to disagree with: “Those numbers can’t be right.”

Instead, the more emotionally intelligent thing to say is, “I have to tell you, I’m feeling a bit anxious about this decision.” This not only helps your team by giving them more information about you and your point-of-view, it provides a more complete view of your perspective. Discussing feelings improves communication and sets the tone for cooperation.

Third, get some EI skill training. EI skill development works best in the form of classroom sessions combined with one-on-one coaching. Be sure the training is skill-based, that is, provides not only information about EI but also the chance to practice skills on real situations. And, be sure that the provider has documented quantified results. Business decisions are based on measured results and decisions on selecting training should be based on the same criteria.

Source:

1. Daniel Goleman, “What Makes A Leader?” HBR, 1998.

————————

Byron Stock guides individuals and organizations toward excellence by helping them develop their Emotional Intelligence skills as a powerful tool to achieve strategic objectives, lead change and create resilient, high-performing organizational cultures. Visit http://www.ByronStock.com to learn about Byron’s quick, easy, proven techniques to harness the power of your Emotional Intelligence.

Is your career wearing you out? Are you too tired to enjoy
your family and friends on the weekends, or what little
part of the weekend you have? Well, I have a secret to
share about the blind spot that just might have got you
there. It certainly was mine. The secret is this: Your job
is only part of your workload. You’re not tired because of
your career. You’re tired because of everything else.

This is particularly true for women. Many of us hold
ourselves up to mid-20th century ideals while working 21st
century careers.

Two years ago, I was just exhausted. Between my business,
the house, eldercare issues, and other responsibilities,
there just wasn’t any time to relax. Something had to go,
but what?

I was sick and tired of hearing from the “experts” that the
solution to my exhaustion was to just stop doing most of
what I was doing. I wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t
important. I had eliminated all that I could, including
many things I enjoy, and there was still no time for a
life. That’s when I realized that I had to start hiring
people to do things for me.

I think you should consider doing the same. It’s your life
you’re talking about. You are in your peak years, both
mentally and physically. If you’re spending your time doing
something you can pay someone $15, $20, or $40 an hour to
do, you’re not spending that time with your kids, partner,
family, or friends, or even a good book. To me this is a
waste of all your education and hard work on the job if all
it gets you is no time for the rest of your life. Will you
really look back on your deathbed and feel satisfied that
you personally pulled all of the weeds in your yard?

It wasn’t easy. Like most entrepreneurs, I love control. I
liked to pretend that I didn’t, but the truth was that I
did. All of my excuses, like “I can’t afford it” really
just came down to one thing: I was afraid to give up
control.

For some tasks, I even had an added layer of rotten
thinking: believing that if I didn’t personally handle
household responsibilities like menu planning and laundry,
I must be a pretty lame wife. What was I thinking? Old
messages still float around our heads, and once we surface
them, we have to whack them on the head until they are
dead. So I did.

My first baby step was the vet who makes house calls. Why
traumatize Bill with a car ride to the vet’s when there’s a
vet who will come to him? Not to mention that it saved me
the time getting out his carrier, driving him to the vet,
waiting, and driving him home.

Then came the bookkeeper. What a fool I was to wait so
long. I meet with her every other week to hand off bills
and receipts. She does the rest and keeps me informed. She
handles bill paying and expense and income tracking and
stays on top of all the accounts for my business, for my
mother-in-law, and for us.

We actually have a household P&L now. I think it’s a ton of
fun. Others think it’s just sick. Either way, I have more
time, and I have better focus at work, since, “Oh, crap, I
wonder if I transferred enough into the personal checking
account to cover that Key Bank automatic payment” never
floats across my brain while I’m at work. I know that
Laurie is all over it. It was heavenly to come home from
almost three weeks away and have NO bills stacked up
waiting for me. None.

It was the bookkeeper who suggested the gardener. She was
right. Kirk hates mowing, anyway, and I was so bored
pulling weeds. Now when I work in the garden, it’s the part
I enjoy, like tending to my herbs and vegetables. It’s
relaxing. It sort of reminds of…oh, what is it…it’s
like having a life!

Finally, I took the biggest step of all: I hired a personal
assistant. She handles the 1,000,000 little things like
laundry, grocery shopping, making appointments with the
plumber, meeting him at the house, and so on and so on. She
saves me a full 40 hours a month. I was pretty shocked to
realize that 10 hours out of every week had gone to
managing the household, some of them during the workweek.

I get really worked up when I hear a reasonably successful
professional say, “Oh, I can’t afford a luxury like that. I
don’t make enough.” I couldn’t either, you could say.
While it’s true that I make more money now because these
wonderful people have freed up time for me to be more
focused and productive, for the first few months, I carried
the expenses without a return (on my business line of
credit, in case you’re interested – real debt, real skin in
the game, no fooling around). I was confident that the
return would come, and would far exceed the investment. It
has.

Even for employed professionals, the return will come if
you (and your partner, if you have one) at least farm out
your most hated tasks.

For the self-employed, it’s absolutely essential to manage
your business from where you want it to be, not from where
it is now. Investment in resources that make you
successful, whether on the personal or business side, is
essential to having a profitable and sustainable business.

—————————————————-
Jennifer Selby Long, Founder and Principal of Selby Group,
provides executive coaching and organizational development
services. Jennifer’s knack is helping clients navigate the
leadership and organizational challenges triggered by
change and growth. She knows firsthand that great plans
often fail because companies don’t take into account the
human factors that come into play when implementing them.
Visit Jennifer at: http://www.selbygroup.com

Brett was in a quandary. He had been running his sales and
marketing consultancy for nearly three years – and while he
wouldn’t describe himself as successful, he had just about
managed to keep his head above water.

One of Brett’s issues however, was how to value his service
- for although he felt he was every bit as good as his
competitors, he mistakenly believed that clients bought
primarily on price.

This had led to Brett undercutting the competition – and
while initially this policy had won him a significant
number of new clients, it wasn’t long before he realised
that his modus operandi was costing him far more than he
realised.

Not only was it hard to increase prices once they have been
set, but Brett also found – much more worryingly – that the
kind of clients who bought on price alone were the kind of
clients who didn’t like paying at all.

Several times Brett had been forced to sue clients for the
money they owed him – and it hadn’t taken him long to
realise that he couldn’t afford “cheap” clients.

While he recognised the problem, Brett could not however,
see the solution.   As he poured out his story to me, I
felt for him – and remembered the countless other clients I
had seen over the years who had shared similar experiences.

One of the problems facing Brett was that he had built his
reputation on being the cheapest sales & marketing
consultancy rather than the most cost effective – and one
of our first tasks would be to change his current and
prospective clients’ perspective from the former to the
latter.

From our discussions it was clear that Brett believed in
the quality of his service, so I suggested that he put his
money where his mouth was – and not only raise his fees but
also offer a full money-back guarantee if a client was
unhappy with his work.

Brett spluttered at the suggestion, saying, “Surely that
will give people even more of an excuse not to pay their
bills!  I really can’t see how offering a guarantee is
going to help me – in fact I think it will make the while
situation worse.”

“I know where you’re coming from,” I replied, “but hear me
out.  You want to be working with the kind of people who
understand that good business is based on long term
relationships forged on the win:win principle.  First
though, you need to gain their trust – and by offering
something first – like a guarantee – you are showing that
you have faith not only in your product but also in the
relationship with your prospective client.”

Brett began to smile as he realised that perhaps there was
a way out of the whole mess after all. “You’re right,” he
said, “I do need to be looking for clients who have the
right attitude.  I guess that by being afraid of charging a
fair price, I have not only been earning less than I should
- but I have also cornered myself into working for the
wrong kind of people.

“Well, all that’s about to change,” he said, with a
confident grin, “As now I am going to be more choosy about
who I take on as my clients.  I am also not going to rush
into making the sale – but when I’m confident that we can
forge a long term relationship, I’ll then be happy to offer
my prospective client a full guarantee.”

As our session came to its conclusion, Brett knew that the
next task on his “to do” list was to revamp his own
promotional literature – taking into account all that he
had learned during the afternoon.

—————————————————-
Olivia Stefanino is a leadership consultant, speaker and
author of the internationally acclaimed management book,
“Be Your Own Guru”. Interviewed on more than 25 radio
stations and featured in “The Guardian”, “Natural Health”
& “Red”, Olivia is a guest columnist for a number of
national and international publications. Download your
fr*ee e-booklet, “128 ways to harness your personal power!”
by visiting http://www.beyourownguru.com

Management consultancies have a reputation for ripping off
their clients.  But is this always deserved?  There are
many reasons for engaging management consultants.  You may
need a particular technical skill, you may need an
objective, third party opinion, or you may have some short
term needs for expertise in change management.  There are
also lots of instances when you shouldn’t use consultants:
you’re not sure what the problem is and you want them to
tell you; you have a budget you need to expend by a certain
date; you want them to make some people redundant.  These
are not good reasons for engaging a consultancy and will
inevitably lead to disappointment.  Taking a responsible
role when contracting with consultancies will ensure this
disappointment is avoided.

First Step:  Decide whether you need a consultancy or not

To decide whether it’s appropriate to engage with a
consultancy or not, consider the following:

What is the need or problem you want to address and why do
you think this need or problem exists? Will it be solved by
this intervention or will the underlying issue still exist?
What skills are you looking for?  What value might a
consultancy bring to your business? What risks are there to
your business in using an outsourced resource?

Second Step:  Draw up the initial brief

Once you’ve convinced yourself and the business that it is
appropriate to engage a consultancy, draw up a brief. Your
brief should be jargon free and contain:

1. A summary description of your organization:  its purpose
and values, what it does, its size and structure

2. The need or problem and why you think this problem exists

3. What you want the consultancy to deliver in terms of
outputs and deliverables

4. What role you want the consultant to play

5. Who will be managing the role of the consultants and
what reporting you expect to take place – weekly, monthly
etc

6. A provisional budget.  To decide on a budget think about
the impact of the problem and potential value of the
solution.  Basing buying decisions purely on cost is not
always effective.  An hourly or daily rate will not tell
you the whole story – a consultant with a high hourly rate
may produce value faster than one with a lower price.  In
addition, experience suggests that if you force consultants
to quote daily rates they will charge you for every single
project meeting, conversation or journey.  An overall
project fee may provide the basis for a more productive and
flexible working relationship.

7. A description of the kind of person(s) you want to
engage:  their skills, experience and skill set.  Industry
experience can be a massive plus factor but you have to
trade this off against the actual project demands that may
not be industry specific.  A specialist software consultant
may be more suitable for a software project in the oil and
gas industry than an oil and gas specialist.

8. Timetable for the work

Third Step:  The Pitch

After shortlisting your potential suppliers you will want
to meet them face to face.

During the pitch don’t be impressed by techno babble. 
Attempts to impress you with an extensive list of acronyms
and niche industry speak often hides a superficial
understanding of the real issues to be addressed.  Instead,
look for a company that listens to you and makes a
presentation or pitch that is both specific and sympathetic
with your company’s objectives, not just one where they
have performed a “find and replace company name” from a
previous document.

Assess the individual and the consultancy.  Remember big
consulting companies are not always the best in every
situation.  Larger companies can lack flexibility in both
internal processes and the way they handle clients.  Larger
companies also have costly head office functions to support
- these costs will be passed on to you through higher fee
rates.

Boutique or niche consultancies can provide specialist
advice in a particular expertise area.  They can be more
cost effective than larger consultancies.  The disadvantage
is that they may not have the breadth of experience in
house to service a large scale change project.  The same
applies for one man bands.

Fourth Step:  Reference Checking

Your original brief gives the basis for assessing which
consultancy you should hire.  When deciding who to work
with review your personal contact through phone calls,
meetings; written information such as research reports,
websites, CVs and the written proposal; and references or
recommendations from other people.

Fifth Step:  Contracting

Your fifth and final engagement step involves drafting a
formal contract which should include:
- The work to be done

- The person(s) who will be delivering the work

- The person who is the lead contact in the organization

- The timescale and deadlines for the stages, if relevant

- The fees to be paid and the schedule of payments

- What expenses will be charged for, and at what rate

- Whether VAT is charged and on what

- Any required insurances (such as professional indemnity
insurance)

- The work to be done by your organization eg arranging
meetings, room hire

- Copyright of written and other creative materials (unless
agreed otherwise, copyright belongs to the creator, ie to
the consultant/trainer)

- How and when the work will be reviewed and what will
happen if either party is dissatisfied

—————————————————-
Pam Kennett is Founder and Director of Chiswick Consulting
Limited a management consultancy which provides advice and
direction to clients in marketing and human resources. Pam
has been a management consultant for more than 15 years.
Contact her at pam@chiswickconsulting.com or visit
http://www.chiswickconsulting.com .

Do you want results . . . or are you satisfied with excuses?

The barrier to irresistible growth is not the unstoppable,
uncontrollable external change, but fixed (and frequently
unexamined) ideas of how to respond to those changes.

John Kenneth Galbraith, the late economist, noted that “The
enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march
of events.”  And the tide of expected future change in our
society is now rapid and breathtaking to most — whether we
consider irresistible forces like the advent of the
Knowledge Age (with knowledge doubling in many fields
within a few years, months, or even days), the electronic
improvements in communication choices (the potential number
of ways for you to receive or send a message will continue
to grow rapidly for many more years), shifts in work
activities (from routine fulfilling of standard tasks to
Peter Drucker’s knowledge work) and stability (as a result
of down-sizing and a “free agent” work force),
demographic-driven social changes (ever older populations
in the developed countries and ever younger ones everywhere
else), weather volatility (both in temperatures and
storms), the movements of currencies and markets, social
mores of the moment (fads get shorter and shorter), or
personal styles of the young (differentiating from older
teenagers, not just from adults).

There is no doubt that today the world has become much more
complicated and interconnected. For businesses,
globalization means that the number and distance of
customers, suppliers and competitors have grown
geometrically. Such interconnectedness also means that what
affects one can quickly spread and affect all, like the
rapid expansions of computer and human viruses. These
connections mean that economic and financial adjustments,
especially in prices and currency values, travel faster and
further than before. Your irresistible growth enterprise
must be agile in adapting to these changes. I believe that
making rapid and best use of sudden changes in powerful
conditions no one can control is the key to becoming an
irresistible growth enterprise.

When asked in the 1950s about how much control they had
over their business’s success, U.S. CEOs felt they had a
great deal. By the start of the 1990s, CEOs often felt that
irresistible forces had more impact on the company’s
success then the employees did.

We only have to look at charts measuring events over the
last 100 years to see that the volatility of many
irresistible forces is also growing. In the last 30 years
alone, this volatility has included an unprecedented
success by a commodity cartel (the Arab oil embargo), the
fall of a major government type around the world
(communism), stock prices have experienced unprecedented
growth in the United States and many other countries,
interest rates have fluctuated from over 20 percent to as
low as 2 percent in North America (and more widely
elsewhere), and the advent of the service economy (of
stores and local brokerage offices) was diverted into
creating an information-based economy.

As these examples suggest, the degree and speed of change
are both accelerating. At one time, corporate leaders could
conduct leisurely studies of such changing phenomena after
they began to occur, thoughtfully select the right actions,
and then experiment with the best way to proceed. In many
cases, the time involved to deliberately study its choices
today costs a company its biggest opportunities, and can
even lead to failure.

Consider Barnes & Noble, the leader in physical book
stores.  Before launching its electronic commerce business,
it decided to watch what happened with Amazon.com for a
while as it studied its options.  By the time Barnes &
Noble was ready to act, Amazon.com had built a commanding
electronic lead that will be very difficult to overcome.
Naturally, it is nice to be able to find one trend and ride
it for a long time.  The results can be wonderful.

McDonald’s is one of very few companies that have had this
experience. The company’s premise is based on customers’
desires for dependable, inexpensive food, served quickly
and effectively in convenient clean locations. From its
beginnings as a single hamburger stand in the 1930s in San
Bernardino, California, it has become a global giant today.

But even McDonald’s had to learn eventually to adapt to the
irresistible force of consumer food preferences as it moved
beyond North America. The familiar hamburger, fries and
soft drink menu had to expand to offer curry in England and
a glass of wine in Paris.

Today’s enterprises will find such long-term rides to be
the exception to the rule. Consider how Microsoft flirted
with disaster in the 1990s by missing the early
significance of providing software and services for the
Internet. Intel was originally a memory chip manufacturer,
and shifted into microprocessors as its primary business
somewhat by accident.

The world is full of shuttered stores that failed to meet
customer needs. Their boarded up windows are mute testimony
to the need to shift with the changing trends. Many of the
most significant irresistible forces (such as new
technologies, improved communications, the weather,
demographics, user preferences, and economic conditions)
have grown much more volatile and unpredictable in just the
past five to ten years.  Analysts suggest that this trend
will accelerate due to the “chaos” effects of how a small
change in one place in the world can cause an enormous
change elsewhere.

Simply consider all of the changes that Jack Welch went
through to turn General Electric from a
slow-growing-industrial goods manufacturer into a financial
services powerhouse with high-margin manufacturing
specialties. Any one of these changes would have
overwhelmed most organizations, yet Welch succeeded with
several.

How well the company fares under Welch’s successors will
reveal a lot about the difficulties of continuing as an
irresistible growth enterprise.

This multiplier effect will increasingly happen with all
irresistible forces, and this is the key insight upon which
you must act now. While most organizations will react to
such forces and their changes only when it is impossible
not to (out of self-preservation or fear), the irresistible
growth enterprise will see the creation of broad
unstoppable change, the accurate anticipation of such
changes, and the steady beneficial harnessing of such
changes to achieve its purposes as its primary tasks.

Are you ready?

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

—————————————————-
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of seven books including Adventures of an
Optimist, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The
Ultimate Competitive Advantage. You can find free tips for
accomplishing 20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

I recently had a conversation with a director of a major
law firm about morale among employees. It was low, and
employee retention was beginning to be an issue.

As we talked, it became apparent that while the lawyers had
access to everything that would help them perform to their
potential, the same could not be said for everyone else in
the firm. People from managers and supervisors to support
staff at all levels felt their contribution was not valued.

The problem was not money. On the contrary, these people
were paid very well, and in fact that may have become part
of the problem. Senior management felt that any unrest in
the ranks could be quieted by simply giving them more
money, and they were quite dismayed to find that was no
longer doing the trick. For them, money was the first and
only form of reward and recognition to offer employees.

Why would they think that, and why would they be surprised
to learn they were wrong?

I wonder how often they actually thought about the feelings
and attitudes of their people, and my guess is — only
when there was a problem. Of course the problem was there
all the time, and growing worse, but they just didn’t
notice.

This situation is unfortunately all too common, and not
just in law firms. There is much discussion among Human
Resources professionals about employee retention, and how
to make sure good and great employees stay around. The
principles are understood, but the practice often doesn’t
match up.

Of course there are numerous specific incentives that can
be implemented, including formal appreciation programs, and
these should certainly not be ignored. Many of these
programs are expensive, and management might well feel
employees are ungrateful not to appreciate them.
Ironically, the root cause of discontent can often be
successfully addressed with no financial outlay at all.

No matter how much money you pay someone, if they are
overloaded with work and constantly stressed by
unreasonable deadlines and treated as if they are
invisible, don’t be surprised when they rebel. Again and
again, studies have shown that the number one cause of
workplace dissatisfaction is that employees don’t feel
respected or appreciated — and those are two different
things.

In another law firm where I facilitated a difficult
discussion between a senior lawyer and his support staff,
one clerk pointed out that the manner in which work was
assigned was offensive. Citing one common task in their
particular area of law, she said, “It takes you just a few
seconds to throw the papers on my desk and tell me to do
it, and for you it’s done. But you forget that for me it
represents two hours of work.” She wasn’t complaining about
the work itself, but felt that her contribution to the
process was not appreciated. As part of a broader picture
of discontent and deepening resentment, this was
significant.

When I visit clients’ offices for meetings, I’m usually
offered coffee, and in this simple situation I can
immediately observe the attitude of the manager or
executive towards staff. One person will introduce me by
name to the assistant bringing the coffee and make the
request in a friendly civilized way; another will simply
buzz the assistant and say, “Bring us coffee in the meeting
room.” This may sound like a small thing, but the second
version demonstrates a lack of respect for the person as a
human being, and when it’s part of an overall pattern, it
can make a huge difference in someone’s quality of work
life.

If you are a Human Resources professional facing morale
problems, you might take some time to observe the
interactions between management and staff. If you see the
signs I’ve been talking about, consider meeting with
managers as a group and pointing out the possible
consequences of their thoughtlessness. Encourage them to
recognize people’s deep human need for respect and
appreciation and take any opportunity they can to meet it.

If you are a manager yourself, consider honestly how you
treat people. Have some meaningful conversation with those
who report to you to let them know you value their
contribution and respect them as individuals.

There’s no financial cost to these initiatives, but the
positive effect on employee retention, morale and
productivity can be immense.

—————————————————-
Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker and workshop
leader specializing in workplace communication. She also
facilitates World Cafe events to enable deep conversation
at all levels in organizations. For more information on her
services, or to subscribe to her free e-zine,
“Communi-keys”, visit http://www.mhwcom.com or e-mail her
at hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Wherever you are today with respect to growing your business or organization, developing systems and processes represents a crucial part of setting the conditions for success. Because it’s so important to establish a robust foundation before your company explodes with new business, this article offers seven ideas for systematizing your organization.

Before your company can respond to rapid shifts or prepare
for expansion, you will want to look around for leaks and
cracks. Ask, “How do communications and work products flow
from suppliers, within the organization, and to customers?
Who hands off what to whom? Is this ideal or should we
optimize processes?”

The answers may reveal areas where no methods exist, where
methods are still too vaguely defined to cement, and where
critical gaps reside that should be sealed before everyone
can perform effectively on a grander scale.

For example, it might be comfortable in the early stages of
a business for people to communicate very informally.
However, informal communication by itself cannot support a
consistent way of operating once more people become
involved. If you plan for growth by systematizing as soon
as possible, you’ll lay a solid framework and avoid an
“implosion” later.

Another major consideration is the amount of irreplaceable
intellectual property that might be stored in the heads of
your employees or contractors. Contributors to your
organization might ebb and flow without your retaining a
fraction of what they know. Can you afford to let them walk
away without capturing their wisdom in your company’s
knowledgebase? Can people go on vacation without causing a
standstill?

————————————————
Take Time to Do a Little “Task Triage”
————————————————

Look at each of the applicable areas of your business, such
as:

. Administration
. Project management
. Production management
. Information technology
. Quality assurance
. Marketing/sales
. Customer support
. Other functional activities

In each area — and even more importantly, across areas –
you’ll find possibilities for streamlining, strengthening,
and documenting your processes. Many processes will begin
in one functional area and continue through other areas
before completion.

The handoffs between people or functions often represent
the weakest links because of the possibilities for
miscommunication, bottlenecks, delays, and data entry
errors. So be especially alert for those areas!

————————————————
Seven Things to Consider When Systematizing Your Business
————————————————

As you proceed to develop and fine-tune your processes,
consider the following.

1. How mature are your processes?

Especially while in a startup mode, many of your methods
might be in a “mushy,” formative state. It can take time to
develop a repeatable pattern for accomplishing work. Even
if your business has operated for a while, new activities
will inevitably emerge. Consider whether each is mature
enough to justify formal documentation, or whether less
formal “desk instructions” would suffice in the meantime.

2. Can you streamline processes before documenting them?

Before documenting your processes:

– Evaluate whether all activities are truly necessary.

– Consider where activities can be simplified, automated,
or eliminated.

– Research where obstacles to productivity exist.

– Ponder all areas with the greatest potential for waste,
errors, mistakes, and hidden drains on your bottom line.

– Think about how streamlining each area would improve
your profitability, customer satisfaction, and internal
effectiveness, and prioritize your efforts accordingly.

3. Who should document your systems?

People often don’t have the “extra” time to document their
own tasks, since they already spend all of their time doing
their regular jobs. Another option might involve “job
shadowing,” where an intern or new-hire continually
observes, discusses, and documents what an expert performer
does.

This relieves the expert of that burden, while providing a
way for the intern to learn and contribute value
immediately. Alternatively, you could hire a procedure
specialist, and if a client engagement benefits enough to
pay for it, that’s ideal!

The intern or specialist also can recommend ideas for
improvement that surface from a having a fresh perspective.
All resulting procedures would be fine-tuned with the
expert’s help and become part of the company’s information
library.

4. How can you go about systematizing?

Begin by asking, “How do we [...]?” and then fill in the
blank with the activity you wish to systematize. Diagram
all steps required to complete that process, across all
functional areas.

You may discover that if you routinely perform certain
steps in a given order, those are good candidates for
step-by-step procedures. In areas where the steps vary
based on the circumstances, a list of guidelines might be
more appropriate. If you are able to automate procedures,
consider using electronic support systems.

5. What types of documentation should you produce?

– Systems, at the highest level, represent collections of
related processes.

– Processes, depicted as diagrams or process maps, provide
overviews of tasks that transform inputs into outputs by
adding value during each task step.

– Procedures cover the step-by-step, “how-to” details for
performing task steps. Procedures might appear in training
materials, job aids, and work instructions. Similarly,
guidelines show what rules to follow in more variable
situations.

6. What can you delegate or outsource?

If you have designed your processes to be easy to follow
and repeatable, so that others can produce the same result
each time, you are ready to delegate. And if you can hand
off to someone with less expertise without losing speed or
quality, hurray!

7. What can you continuously improve?

Always be alert for ways to eliminate, automate, or
simplify every activity that you perform routinely. Your
time is valuable, so your goal should be to spend time on
the activities that will contribute most to your company’s
profitability. For every step, ask, “What value does this
add? What’s a faster, less complicated way of getting this
done? Can a different view of this system expose new
possibilities for streamlining?”

In conclusion, systematizing your business may seem like an
overwhelming effort. But if you prioritize the areas to
simplify and document according to what will have the
greatest impact on your bottom line, and enlist outside
help, you’ll be well on the road to success.

—————————————————-
Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of the award-winning
“Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance” program.
She helps people “discover and recover” the profits their
businesses may be losing every day through overlooked
performance potential. To sign up for more free tips, visit
her site at http://LearnShareProsper.com