Are you a Change Agent?

The business climate of today places extreme demands upon executive leadership to constantly adjust the business model to meet a rapidly changing business horizon. New technologies entering the market that obsolete current products and services, global competitors able to offer products with lower prices produced in less regulated and lower labor cost regions, changing preferences of the customer that reduce the product window of opportunity which increases the need for rapid returns on investment represent a few of the issues that keep executive awake at night.

Those that sleep easier are most likely recognized as change agents. Change agents are those who are equipped with extraordinary skills that allow them to anticipate and “lead” an organization through troubled and often chaotic business conditions. Many business organization experts will list the following as success characteristics of change agents:

Analytical
Change agents need to be able to quickly asses the data provided to them and to also recognize that additional data needs to be collected to understand trends and reveal unexpected events. This is someone who can read between the lines and determine if the analysis or numbers “smell right” or not.

Listener
An effective change manager is one who listens well. They cultivate listening opportunities and create an environment that invites information flow in their direction. They have the ability to hear critical comments about the company (even themselves) without shooting the messenger and process the input into timely action and change. Managers who listen and do nothing soon loose the interest of those best positioned to give valid feedback and help the company.

Mediator
Positive conflict resolution is the result of effective mediation where the parties involved are able to return to their respective responsibilities having reached a mutually acceptable agreement. Proactively seeking out and resolving conflict eases organization tension, significantly improves productivity and the adoption of new methods and practices.

Architect
The business model needs to be tailored to strategically meet various business conditions. Business models can quickly age and move from strategic to tactical and from offering differentiated high-value products and services to lower-value price-sensitive commodity products and services. An effective change agent will adjust the design of the business model to achieve and retain a high-value market position.

Teacher and Coach
Change is not adopted easily by most organizations. Change threatens people as it often represents moving into the unknown. An effective change agent will use good communication methods to explain the objectives of the change, teach key performers on what needs to be changed, how to do it and then coach them through the process. Using good feedback techniques the change agent manager will know where to look for problems and obstructions to change and work with individuals to resolve misunderstanding and encourage confidence to perform uncomfortable practices until they experience success.

How do you score as a change agent?
These are just a few of the characteristics and you may not be required to excel in all of them at the same time but you need to be ready to step up and apply the right ones when challenging business conditions occur. Seek others to help you determine where you score. Subordinates may not be the best source of feedback for this purpose. Uses business associates, an organized group of peer executives or an outside consultant to help give you perspective in this important part of your executive development and performance.

Goal Exercise

As the economic climate changes and as the business climate becomes uncertain it is imperative that you and your leadership team have a clear understanding of the mutual goals you are working toward. When business is going “good” this understanding is not regularly clarified and it can be very surprising to learn how your key managers interpret and prioritize their goals. Consequently they do not readily line up with the changing goal set necessary to weather a major shift in business climate.

Making quarterly numbers and meeting or exceeding forecast is not necessarily a sign that your managers are in tune with the goals of the company. Some times numbers can be made in spite of ourselves and yet we tend to believe that it is because everyone is operating as you want them to in every situation. However, success (just making numbers) can cover a multitude of sins.

A tight market, rapid arrival of a competitor, loss of a major customer can stress “reliable” business functions. Previously well-performing groups can begin to struggle or go into denial that a change is upon them. When you peel back the layers that distant us from the inner workings of these groups and take a closer look it becomes obvious that what we assumed were groups running on sound business rules and practices were running on auto-pilot driven by the market and not business discipline. Too often this is not discovered until it is discovered how it is impacting the bottom line.

We are less inclined to audit or challenge performing groups. There are always other more important issues that take up our time and why spend time “fixing something that is not broken”. However, you don’t just get up and run a marathon. You train for it. If you are going out for a run you stretch to make sure you don’t pull something. Do we do this to our businesses?

Take the time to “test” or “measure” your management team and business plan. Conduct a disaster drill that exercises practices and strategies that are rarely used to measure how well you are able to respond.

• What attitudes do you witness during the exercise?
• Was everyone on the same page?
• Did they all recognize the “urgency” of the situation and take appropriate measures?
• What groups already had early warning practices in place that helped them anticipate a change?
• Who were the leaders and who followed? Is this what you expected?
• Who recognized what tough decisions needed to be made and developed an implementation plan to make them?
• Did you discover a consistent understanding of the company goals or do you need to work on refining them, improving communication and execution?

This is a tough business practice to implement on top of everything else that you are asking your management team to do. However, when you regularly exercise under practice situations you will find that you can always respond faster, go farther and last longer when the real thing happens. The boundaries of your goals are sharper and better understood by the key people that are in key positions. Your company will be better prepared and have a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses to develop a competitive response to unexpected circumstances.

Dealing with Employees Consistently

My experience in manufacturing began in a UAW union plant. I was part of a turnover of the management team designed to bring a fresh approach to dealing with a number of issues that the manufacturing team was struggling with. The most significant issue was the number of outstanding grievances that existed between the bargaining unit and management which consumed a great deal of “productive” time on a daily basis.

Why were there so many grievances? There were issues on both sides. Initial recruiting standards for employees and supervision were poorly defined and cronyism existed where friends and family were often employed without regard to qualifications, temperament or character. This was most evident in the supervision ranks which were the primary interface between management and union employees. Individual supervisors were given a wide birth in what they were allowed to do and how to do it with regard to how they used and directed people. Consequently many “inconsistencies” existed which led to a great deal on complaints as to how discipline issues were dealt with on a daily basis – both good and bad! The union stewards had a field day highlighting and comparing good examples with bad examples and the previous management team responded in a defensive way which further exacerbated the situation.

How was the situation brought under control? Our new management team took on the issue of dealing with employee issues in a proactive way with emphasis from the top down and that consistency was the new way to deal with complaints and discipline throughout the plant. Top and middle level management were constantly on the floor observing, coaching and available to assist front line supervisors as they applied the new supervision process. In some cases “hard” headed supervisors who resisted the new direction needed to move on. Recruiting standards for new supervisors were raised to measure the supervision attributes, temperament and desire to work in a manufacturing line environment. In a few cases, line employees stepped forward and moved into supervision and this also included the first female line supervisors (a rarity in the ‘70’s).

Changes were also made in the recruiting of line employees as well requiring minimal education accomplishments as a way to measure the interest of the prospective employee to advance themselves. This was most effective when a slow down and protracted strike resulted in a number or early employees hired when the plant was first staffed, who were poorly prepared for a work environment, did not have to be brought back and they were replaced with new, motivated employees.

Slowly the contentious work environment changed. Incidents of on-the-line disputes reduced to zero. The triple digit number of grievances dropped to double and then to single digit. The time spent disputing (negotiating) grievances dropped from hours per day to a couple of hours or less per week. The productive climate in the plant changed dramatically and the plant became a top performer reversing the reputation that it had when the new management team arrived.

While there were a number of changes throughout the plant to cause this change in performance the most significant was the change in dealing with people and it had a great impact on me. As I moved on to other management position with companies that were non-union it was obvious that many of the other managers did not appreciate the management environment of a non-union business. I would always address the “violations” that I noticed in my departments to be more employee focused and measuring how consistent our practices were in dealing with performance, discipline and behavior and ultimately the quality of the work environment. Again, this often required people to make major changes in the way they viewed there subordinates and in a few cases changes in personnel. However, the result of dealing with employees consistently was always rewarded with an increase in productivity, reduction in turn over and a positive work environment that attracted high achievers.

Betrayed by Work

Are you proud of the job, position or profession that you have developed over your working career? While you may have reached the prominent position in your company or industry that you have always desired do you find that you are not as comfortable or satisfied as you expected to be. Why is that?

Those who have worked hard at their careers, developing a strong reputation for performance and accomplishment and are often too preoccupied with their work to the exclusion of other people (non-work related), hobbies, volunteer experience and very often their own family. People that fit this profile are described as having a “life out of balance!”. A career focused life is a very self-serving existence which you may declare to be doing it for the company or your family or “??” but in reality it is a pre-occupation with your success. Unfortunately in many cases men and women find that what they were driving toward does not have the “rewards” they expected to receive and enjoy when they got “arrived”.

They are surrounded by people like themselves who are too often focused more on their own interests than yours. You don’t have the relationships (men primarily) that you would think your accomplishments would create or attract. Relationships that are needed when the tough life experiences arrive in your life when you ask “Who do I turn to?”. Is this due to your job or you?

Do not rely on work to be an end all! While you may achieve the desired image you are pursuing, you may not be the person you want to be. How do you answer the following questions?

1. Are you comfortable with people in non-work situations?
2. Are you able to give freely of your time to something other than work?
3. Are you recognized by those around you as a genuinely happy person?
4. Do you constantly seek the approval of others?
5. Is your life constantly too busy where even standing in line for tickets at a theater is agonizing?

If you found yourself answering yes to these questions then you need to re-examine “the life you always wanted”. More work-work is not going deal with these issues. You need to step back and take a look at where you are going and change the manner in which you approach your job. What am I talking about?

1. Consciously focus on other people. Those around you at work, the waiter that serves you, the neighbor down the street or your children at home that you may have never looked at in a different way in terms of what is going on in their lives. Spend time considering what they are dealing with in their lives and if possible and appropriate offering advice or support (i.e. helping them move on a weekend) to let them know they are not alone.
2. Commit to serving in a volunteer role – youth sport coach, non-profit position, ushering at church – where you give of yourself and serve outside of work.
3. Look for humor in your daily life. Engage with people who have the ability to find joy in what they do on a daily basis and have them help you see similar circumstances in your life and how to laugh at them or enjoy them with humor.
4. Do something anonymously to reduce your tendency to only do things that bring acknowledgement. Help someone without telling them who you are. Send money to an organization or person in need in a way that they will not be able to trace it to you.
5. Find a way to bring patience into your daily life. Let someone ahead of you in the check-out line. Find a way to bring solitude into your daily routine – get up 15 minutes earlier, schedule time in your calendar to not-be-busy. Use this time to bring order to your life.

By focusing on others, giving of ourselves in a volunteer role, seeing life through the lens of humor, helping others selflessly and doing so with an attitude of patience we bring a new bearing to who we are and a value to life and others that is not based on work. One day we will be “retired” and then what? Will that be the time to change and be a different person? Make the change now and expand your job satisfaction to be based on life beyond work so that when the rewards of working fall below what you expected and you feel betrayed you have something to fall back on that is far more rewarding.


For more information about “The Life You Always Wanted” click here.

Framing Job Value

Job satisfaction is often talked about in terms of what the company needs to do to make the job more rewarding and satisfying for the employee. The company has basic obligations to provide a reasonable and competitive work environment, effective tools and systems, training and compensation. Intangibles such as motivation programs, social opportunities to develop work relationships and teamwork add to a positive work environment.

Even if the company excels at all of these efforts, employees (owners included) can still struggle with job satisfaction. Why? Why does a company have a poor to mediocre attitude on the part of its employees when they appear to be doing all the right things. What are high performing companies doing to create a highly motivated work environment for their employees?
I recently heard a story about Bill Pollard, now the retired Chairman of ServiceMaster, who had to deal with a work performance issue at a hospital where the cleaning crew (janitors) had a morale problem toward their work duties resulting in a customer satisfaction problem. The crew seemed to be above average individuals and well qualified to do the work but they viewed themselves at the bottom of the pecking order in the hospital and this translated to the attitude and self image that they carried into their daily routine. They did not feel that what they did on a daily basis – clean floors, restrooms, hallways, etc. – had any value.

ServiceMaster took the novel approach of “framing” the job that the janitors were doing into an integral role in joining the healthcare professionals to improve the healthcare delivery and treatment of the patients. Turning their focus from cleaning floors to providing a “clean” facility where people could be treated better changed the value that the janitors placed on their jobs. Consequently the floors were cleaner, the restrooms regularly serviced and cleaned and job satisfaction improved significantly leading to a satisfied customer.

Are other companies helping their employees frame their jobs into one that has high value?

• Toro (lawn mowers) sent manufacturing employees to customer locations during slack production cycles – high quality golf courses such as Augusta – to work alongside the users of the equipment that they assembled and rarely had a chance to use or see in use. Result: These employees came back with recommendations on how to improve the product and produce a quality product.
• Disneyland has for years used the approach in training employees that they are actors providing entertainment for visitors – guests. They each have a role to play and are conditioned to be in character when in the presence of guests to create a high quality customer experience.
• Les Schwab sells tires but when you enter the parking lot and park your car you are often greeted at the car by an eager employee to respond to your needs. They don’t just shuffle over to the car since it is rare for them to not run over to you and present a professional appearance – clean uniform, recent haircut, and upbeat greeting.

There are many other examples but the common practice observed is the intentional effort to focus the employee on a role of value that they are satisfied with that will best serve the customer. Is this the practice at your company? Is this how you approach your job, how you interact with your employees and most importantly how this carries out to the customer.

Establishing a company signature culture such as Disneyland or Les Schwab can rarely be implemented without the full endorsement and “walk-the-talk” attitude from the owner or leadership team. This is something that is not someone else’s job and if you want to do it right, needs to permeate all that you and the rest of your company does on a daily basis. Inconsistencies will be quickly recognized and will erode all of the good efforts that others may do and you will come short of your objective.

Take a look at how your employees approach their jobs. Do they see value or drudgery? Come alongside them and redefine and “frame” what they see in their jobs into one that has value. You will be amazed at the impact this will have in their work life, personal life and the customers impression of your company.

Get the Facts!

Our new innovative product on the new 747-400 was experiencing a high failure rate during installation. Boeing engineering pointed the finger back to us as producing a failure prone product. However, due to our recent adoption of SPC tools and processes the failure modes were not indicative of a manufacturing related defect or failure.

Boeing was new to the SPC process and even though they were dictating that many of their suppliers adopt it they put aside our SPC evidence and remained firm in their belief with non-SPC data as their basis. We made repeated requests for Boeing engineering to go out onto the assembly line and talk to the installers to get a first hand understanding of we configuration in which the units were failing. These requests went nowhere and were denied. They were hesitant to do their own due diligence and have engineering talk the installers to get further details – a classic engineering/manufacturing silo effect.

Coincidentally British Aerospace was also putting our product, same design different package, on their new regional commuter jet the BAE 146. I made a courtesy visit to their factory and they greeted me with the news of our product “failing on the line”. I took the opportunity to ask if I could go into an aircraft where the product was installed and talk to the installation team. They immediately complied in an interest to get to the bottom of the problem.

While I did not have any detail failure analysis of these units I suspected that the failures they were having were of the same order as those at Boeing. I was escorted into a selected aircraft that was in the stage of assembly where our product was installed. I was introduced to the supervisor who quickly confirmed that the units were failing at a high rate. I asked to talk to the actual person who installed the units. He was nearby and said that yes, the units were failing but that was not the whole story. When the installed unit failed he would install a second unit and if it failed he then tested the wiring harness and almost in every instance he discovered a short in the wiring harness that was damaging our product. Our product was in fact testing their wiring harness to see if it was defective or not – an expensive proposition.

I asked if the wiring harnesses were high pot tested and they did not know. The engineering manager that I was with took me over to the wiring assembly area where the harnesses were assembled on large tables. The supervisor there said that at that time the harnesses were not high pot tested but they had a request into management to purchase the test adapters and equipment for the test but it had not been approved.

I returned to Seattle and immediately called for a meeting with Boeing where I presented my findings from my visit to British Aerospace. They were somewhat skeptical that what happened at BAE would occur at Boeing. I requested that they provide evidence that the 747-400 harnesses were high pot tested. A week late Boeing engineering reported that in fact the cause of the failures of our product was resolved. An immediate change had been made in their wiring harness process to high pot test them before they were put on the aircraft. Boeing accepted responsibility for all of the return units the “failed” and further failures dropped to a near zero level.

When failure modes don’t add up, trace the problem to its root cause and understand the failure environment. Go to the source and “get the facts” to make sure you are getting the real story. Too often organizational barriers filter information which is further distorted as it is passed through multiple people on its way to you and even within your company. It is amazing how quickly problems can be solved when you have the complete information.

Get the facts!

Use Your Brain Trust!

Late one afternoon the call came in that Boeing was putting a hold on receiving any further of our highest volume and most profitable product. They said the incoming rejection rate was too high and until this was resolved we were on hold. I had only been with the company a few months and I already had a number of fires I was dealing with and did not need another one, particularly with our biggest customer and one that had such immediate economic impact.

This was obviously a concern to everyone involved with the product line. How could this happen overnight? Well it didn’t! Boeing was under pressure to ramp up their production line and the quality problems with this product had been there for some time but were not high on their priority list but when it did percolate to the top they took immediate action.

I convened a meeting of manufacturing, engineering and test engineering to understand why the product was having such a poor incoming inspection quality. No one had an immediate answer for, in their minds, everything was “normal”. I asked everyone to work together and diagram how the product was currently manufactured, tested and environmentally stressed. We consumed several white boards with functional blocks and arrows. As we stood back we started asking questions about why it was manufactured and tested in this way and were these procedures the best way to do it to get the highest quality unit to the customer.

Quickly we identified a major flaw in the process. Two critical steps in the process were reversed and it apparently had been that way for some time. How did this happen? No one knew specifically, or own up to it, but it appeared to be the result of a “patch” applied to the manufacturing process to solve one problem that was now causing an even greater problem that was not reviewed to make sure it was compatible with the total process to produce a quality product.

The error in the process was corrected and all units currently in house were retested under the new process and within a matter of a few weeks the quality matter was resolved, units were exceeded incoming inspection standards, Boeing removed the product hold and paid invoices – life was good!

Taking advantage of the collective knowledge and expertise of those closest to the product, “the brain trust”, was the key to a quick resolution of this problem. As individuals they did not recognize the source of the problem as their perspective was affected by their bias of what they felt should be the right process. Fortunately as a group they were able to admit that the old process was flawed and could not produce a quality product, identify what changes needed to be made and establish a corrective action plan to implement to get all in house units, and eventually those at Boeing, retested, certified and accepted by Boeing.

Could this problem have been solved another way? Possibly but it would have taken longer, the outcome may not have changed the process, leaving a process in a condiiton that might create the same problem again and the response to Boeing would have been unreasonably delayed.

This incident raises a number of questions from our experience that you might want to consider for your company:

• What problem resolution process do you use in your company?
• Does it take a “stop shipment order” of this magnitude to get the right people in the room?
• Do your employees have the freedom to critically question the process without fear of retribution from those in power positions?
• Is your brain trust available to solve problems that need resolution fast or are the problems relegated to employees who are not in positions to get action within the company?
• Do not assume that just because you have a process that has been in existence for some time that it cannot become “corrupted” even under the best circumstances?

Make sure that your “brain trust” is applied to isolate and correct dysfunctional business processes and serve the best interests of the company and customer.

Are You a Change Agent?

“If you’re looking for a sure way to make enemies, change something” President Woodrow Wilson

All of us have experienced change in our businesses. These are changes that are necessary in order to respond to market needs, expanded or increased business growth, presence of new competition in the marketplace or the need to stimulate the organization to perform at a higher level. However, not everyone in our organizations view the need for change as an imperative to adopt in order to perpetuate the business and help it remain viable and competitive.

Why do we find employees so ready to resist change? It often begins when we recruit and hire them with what they believe they were “promised” as a job role and responsibilities. On the other hand it may fall to us who allow the organization to continue to operate past a point when change was necessary but we procrastinated or allowed ourselves to be distracted by other more important issues.

Highly competitive companies master the ability to change when conditions dictate. Key people are recruited who show an ability to recognize when it is time to make a change and are change enablers. They lead the change process and help other who are less likely to accept change to get over the hurdles that they imagine are in the way of success.

Is your organization change enabled? Do you have key people who are able to recognize when existing business practices are out of date or inappropriate for the current business circumstance. Are these key performers able to coach others who are fundamental to the successful adoption of changing business practices to see this as a positive change and not one that threatens them? Are your key performers measured on their ability to support change in addition to the other performance factors that they are expected to do as part of the their professional responsibilities?

Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? Too often business owners are a stick in the mud when change is needed as it often means accepting the ideas of others, often much younger and newer to the company, to obsolete or significantly modify business practices that you personally established. Is your first reaction to a suggestion to make a change defensive or supportive? How you are viewed as a change enabler – open to new ideas, encourage those who take a risk, willing to let people take responsibility, and forgiving if the change is not totally correct the first time – will determine how likely your company will consider change and implement it successfully.

Look for opportunities to encourage the “young Turks” in your organization to question what they are doing to see if it is the best way for the company to serve customers, design quality products, reduce the time to get new products to the market and control product cost. Determine if you have an appropriate process to handle change so that the change fits your company ethics, avoids conflicts elsewhere in the company, and involves the necessary parties that are involved. A very important test is to ask your employees (and in some cases customers) to assess whether your change process is successful or not.

Employees are most satisfied when they use business practices that are tuned to the business environment that they serve and possess an avenue to change these practices when they have a better idea or see a conflict when special circumstances occur. The stress level of employees can be reduced significantly if they can see a realistic way to influence how they conduct their responsibilities. Regularly examine the health of your company based upon its ability to change and change successfully in addition to P/L, Balance Sheet and the other measures by which we score our businesses.

Ownership/Leadership Delegation

A common attribute of company owners is there tendency to micro-manage and closely hold onto the operations of the company. They insist on being part of too many decisions and business practices that should be delegated to properly recruited and trained employees. However, the initiative, drive, product/market knowledge and independent problem solving skills that were fundamental in the founding of the business become a major obstacle to the efficient operation of the company as the size of the business exceeds their ability to handle it all.

The wise owner soon realizes that there are not enough hours in the day to be integral in the many details that need attention. He or she understands that they cannot be absorbed on one issue while two or more others stand waiting in line. They realize that the intimate knowledge and exposure they used to have of the business needs to be delegated to trained and trusted employees that are prepared to demonstrate that they “own” that area of the business as much or more than the owner.

Wise owners adjust where they get their satisfaction in the business by seeing others do what, in the past, only they could do. Transferring the primary roles of sales, product or operations leadership to other competent employees and helping them grow is where their greatest value can be applied to the company.

We can be obsessed with our importance and our self esteem becomes wrapped up in what we do at work. This is a trap! The harder you work to prove your ability, you find yourself on a treadmill of always proving yourself and demonstrating your importance. However, as we increase the hours that we work in our companies, are we just satisfying our need to be important or are we laying the foundation for others to eventually step in and take over. The test is what happens when you leave the company for a few days or take a two week vacation – without checking e-mail.

If on your return days or two weeks later, for example, and your staff clearly demonstrates that they stepped in and dealt with the normal and unexpected activities of the business then you are doing a good job. On the other hand, if you return and find chaos then you are surely wanted to get everything back into control but what happens next time. Will your customers be willing to hang in the wind when you are out next time? You may justify this condition by telling yourself how important your are to the company as you perform damage control but you clearly represent a critical liability to the company. One that needs immediate attention to avoid what happens when the proverbial truck happens to meet you in the road.

If you can’t let go then get help! The following details what steps you can take.

• Have someone look over your shoulder to help you develop a plan to delegate the critical priorities of your job to others either permanently or in a secondary role.
• Establish priorities to spend time developing people to improve their skills to handle more responsibility.
• Hold yourself accountable on a regular basis to developing others.
• Intentionally reassign meeting responsibilities that you used to handle, formally designate responsibilities to key people so that other employees know who is the primary person to contact, and direct others employees to them when they try to get you involved.
• Have regular meetings with your reports to go over how they are handling their responsibilities. Do not take control when emergencies reach a critical stage. Ask the responsible manager what they recommend, give them options to consider, help them make the decision and if necessary help them execute the decision.
• Where necessary make personnel changes to make sure you have the right people in the right positions that are rewarding for them and the company.
  

Effectively delegating ownership and leadership responsibilities is healthy for the company, helps it grow, keeps vital and valuable employees in the company and provides the opportunity for a balanced life for the real owner – you!

Unusual Follow-up!!!

I recently had a notice appear on the screen of my PC alerting me to the upcoming expiration of a software license. The alert gave me the impression that by clicking through I would be presented with the correct version of software to order and extend the license one more year. Unexpectedly as I went to the next screen I was presented with an array of choices which appeared to be setup to result in ordering a more expensive and unnecessary license. Confused, I called the company’s customer support line to determine what action to take.

The call with the customer service agent was even more confusing as he referred to a notice that I should have received that “completely” explained what action I was to take. While this was being explained to me I checked my incoming mail box (I never delete anything) and no notice was found. I told him that I was surprised with the level of software sophistication that exists today that the prompt should have automatically told me what was already installed and what ordering action would be appropriate to update the software correctly and extend the license one more year. The agent was unable to assist me in making the right decision so I suggested (strongly suggested) that he refer this problem to his management that this required so much of my time to resolve (now a half hour) and it was still unresolved.

I let the system prompt me daily for the next week as my time to make a decision decreased. On the last day I clicked again and a new screen appeared that clearly identified what license I was to order to efficiently update my license. The whole matter took less than 10 minutes to complete.

Two hours later I received a call from the software company. The person calling expressed his concern that there had been a problem (earlier call seven days previously) and that this problem had been reported by others. He was personally calling to make sure there was no further confusion in ordering the correct license to retain me as a customer. I told him that I successfully navigated what must have been an updated sequence of steps to order the new license correctly. Since I noticed a positive response either due to my feedback or from others I also took advantage of an incentive and added an additional feature to the license.

I was stunned by the interest of the company to make a personal call, most likely costing more than the lprice of the icense upgrade, to make sure that I was satisfied and by someone who was in a senior position and clearly had the resources to deal with the matter. He also freely admitted that there had been a problem and was taking action to contact each person who reported it to make sure their customers were properly served and not confused or lost over the issue.

To say the least I was impressed. It is not unusual for software vendors who think they are pretty important to be unresponsive in situations like this and I will often seek out other competitive products in the marketplace. By taking this action I am now a more loyal customer who has first hand witnessed the extent this company will go to make sure that I was serviced correctly despite some difficulties on their part.

The name of the software company is Symantec.

Going Across the Middle

As a young man I participated in a number of athletic sports. It was not until much later in my business life that I realized how valuable this experience was. Owning or running a business reminds me of when I was a spilt end (the wide receiver term came much later) and had to catch a quick pass over the middle. The middle was the domain of the linebackers, defensive halfbacks and safety and they enjoyed taking advantage of the receiver concentrating on where the ball was coming from to position themselves to deliver a hit (a knockout blow) so that the receiver would think twice, or hear footsteps, the next time he ran that route.

In business we find many similar circumstances where there are competitors, regulators, legislators and often customers who are trying to deliver a knockout blow to send a message that could ultimately damage the reputation, brand, financial performance, etc. of the company. While you cannot eliminate the probability of taking a hit, you can control how prepared you are when they come and how you deal with them.

I always admired Mike Ditka who as a player for the Chicago Bears, Phildelphia Eagels and Dallas Cowboys was the perfect example of how to successfully go across the middle, catch the ball and deliver a hit. He savored the experience of not just catching the ball but delivering a hit (often knocking out the defensive player). The difference, Ditka saw it as an opportunity to control and not be controlled. He prepared physically and mentally to excel under these circumstances and defensive backs thought twice about how to bring him down.

Successful companies take and deal with the big hits that can create significant problems for others. What makes successful companies? They do the best in recovering from adverse conditions because they anticipate that challenges will happen unexpectedly and what should be done when they occur. They hire the right people who can think on their feet, have the right attitude and adopt a discipline to face problems head on and handle them in a proactive manner. Processes and policies are examined to see what adjustments if any are needed to reduce their exposure the next time they encounter similar circumstances.

Conditioning your organization to profit from the big hits that come in business will prepare you for high return opportunities. Nurturing your employees to thrive in these circumstances strengthens your company to excel where other, less prepared companies “hear footsteps” and drop the ball. Aggressively responding to tough business situations successfully will deliver a message to the marketplace, future and prospective customers, competitors and employees.

Those times that I was properly prepared, physically and mentally, I was able to catch the ball and run over the defensive back, hardly noticing that he had actually hit me pretty hard but I was so focused down the field that I ignored the impact. Is your organization prepared to take the hit, focus on where they need to go and deliver a positive message to all involved as to what your company is about?

Intentionally prepare your company to deal with the unexpected, motivate your people to rise to the occasion when extreme circumstances occur, develop a positive attitude as to how your company deals with adversity that is focused on a successful outcome. Keep your eye on the ball and look down field.

Be prepared to go across the middle!

Where Can I get advice?

Life in the top chair can be lonely particularly when you are faced with business circumstances that require decisions outside of your comfort zone. How do you get the perspective to execute a decision process to deal with a specific situation? Can you go to your leadership team when the problem may conflict with their vested interests – job security, career objectives, self-esteem, etc.

Direct reports are not always the best resource to give you advice as it may be difficult resolving what they tell you. It may be designed to respond to what they think you want to hear. Even if you have an employee who you feel is a good “unbiased/confidential” resource you need to recognize that others will know he/she has your ear. This raises other organizational conflicts unless you are able to let everyone in on what is going on which is not always possible or appropriate.

Owners and executives who have found themselves in this predicament and have dealt with it successfully have reached outside the company for advice. This can be risky if done in an emergency mode so the best practice is to proactively develop relationships with people whose opinions you regard highly. These people should have the range of experience and expertise that covers the areas of your business that you are less familiar with. In the event that this group is not able to address a specific issue they are probably in a position to direct you to a reliable resource.

Consultants (those who have actually had credible management experience developing their area of expertise) are a common way to create an advisory resource. This may be done on an hourly basis or retainer. A retainer may appear more costly but it removes the billable hour pressure that might influence availability and desire of the consultant to move into a more involved role in the solution which compromises the independent perspective of your advisor for they are now part of the problem.

Other business professionals if you find they are sufficiently removed from your market – customers and competitors - to handle your discussions confidentially. A number of organizations offer “leadership” groups where you can meet in a structured process, often 4 – 8 hours every month, where members are required to discuss different aspects of their business. This can be a valuable source of advice as long as you can be transparent, honest in divulging critical information about your company and able to be accountable to the group. Having this type of an accountability partner/group can be very effective but also intimidating for many of us.

Professionals who have retired that have had a credible track record in industries and levels of responsibility that are similar to you can also be very useful. However, will they take the time to understand your business or be flattered by your invitation to be an adviser and just offer platitudes? An advisor should be proactive in pursuing information in order to give you informed advice.

No matter which way you go, effectively using an outside advisor requires an investment in time, discernment in developing a trust relationship, becoming comfortable being told what you don’t want to hear and accountable to someone when you are used to being the top dog. An owner or CEO/CXO does this successfully will be recognized as someone who is coachable, prudent, balanced and will most likely have a record of successfully making decisions that are well thought out. Another by product will be the positive influence on his management team in how they become part of a decision making process that has depth of experience and business expertise.

What does your company know about its business process?

A local business owner was concerned about the amount of energy that he and his organization were using to “get the job done!” The owner had made a conscious decision to hire younger people with little to no business experience into key positions. His intent was to mold them to fit his business model. However, as I continued my investigation he was not using any structured method, materials or mentoring to transfer knowledge of the company business process to them.

Documented operating procedures were few to non-existent and those that were in place were dated and had not been reviewed for current compliance. As I pursued this line of questioning the owner began to realize that his expectation of hiring “good” people that would understand intuitively what to do to run the business was unrealistic. While he had “intuitively” learned the business when he started, he now realized that the people he had hired did not have the attributes and desire to rise to this level of performance.

Given the absence of written procedures I suggested that a quick way to get everyone on the same page was to graphically illustrate in a flowchart format how the various operations of the company were connected from a responsibility and transaction point of view. The owner agreed and we conducted a number of two hour sessions where we flowcharted the business from the origin of an order to the acceptance of the final deliverable, customer acceptance and payment. The process resulted in a number of occasions where the owner did not know how the company performed a function and who was primarily responsible for it. When complete the flowchart was almost five feet long.

The flowchart process was very productive for the owner for it clearly revealed where he was of most value but also where he spent most of his time. His high value contribution was sales and project engineering but the majority of his high stress moments were when he was involved in “expediting” or “crisis managing” the operations of the company where he had the inexperienced and uninformed employees. He clearly saw that he needed to spend the majority of his time at the left of the flowchart in sales and project engineering and develop his operations people to be able to deliver projects without his micro-oversight and crisis intervention when a customer called about a problem.

I produced the business flowchart on glossy paper and the owner had it framed and mounted in an area where he could explain it to his employees. He was particularly careful to let his senior people know where he would be focusing his time on the business and now with clear definition of the business process where he wanted them to take responsibility and perform.

The benefits of this exercise were not long in coming as employees began to understand what their area of responsibility was, what the primary/secondary roles were, and what they knew could be expected of them and more importantly what they could expect of others. The crisis level dropped significantly and over a period of a year the business productivity rose dramatically.

Another byproduct of the process was a revision of the hiring practices to recruit people with appropriate experience that could add value to the business and company culture. Companies expect to train new employees but companies should also expect new employees to contribute knowledge or expertise and quickly be a producer and not be a burden on the resources of the company.

Investigate what your employees are using to guide their activities, make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what should be expected of them and what they can expect of others and hire people that can contribute and grow and not just float along.

Are you fulfilling your legislative responsibility?

As business people we are constantly pressed to decide what our priorities are on a daily basis. Orders, planning, product or service levels, bank and customer relationships and employee issues dominate our calendars to the extreme and then we are called to be involved in our industry legislative agenda. Don’t we hire people to do that for us or pay annual fees to organizations to represent us?

It is so easy to make the excuse that we are too busy for “non-company” business but as we do that we are removed from connecting with our elected process and we abdicate authority to an amazingly important process that can have long range impact on our businesses, employees and families. Elected legislative representatives and their staff are not elected due to their knowledge of your industry and the issues that are at work that can make it viable of non-competitive. They are constantly barraged by people who do not have the busy calendar that you do lobbying for entitlements and legislation that either directly or as the result of unintended consequences can affect your business significantly and more often than not adversely.

My industry would annually bus a group of owners and senior company executives to the state capital to speak with legislators about industry issues. We traveled on one bus and when we arrived I counted at least 11 other buses. I asked the government guide taking care of our party what other businesses were also here and she quickly said that they represented the other side lobbying for assistance and more government regulation while we were focusing on “reasonable” regulation and no handouts.

The elected officials that we met with were honest with us but while they appreciated our presence and the opportunity to speak with us directly. They admitted to us that visiting only one day a year was woefully inadequate to represent our industry and the issues that were important to us. We needed to be in the state capital and available to testify or have some of our chief technologists do the same, meet with them in the district that elected them, invite them to our businesses no matter how small so that they can become familiar with who we are and what we represent.

While industry staffers can prepare the agenda and materials it was obvious that unless we took the time to invest on a regular basis our concerns would not be validated by our presence and personal investment. Can we expect our legislators to make the right decision when there is so much counter testimony on important issues when we say we are “too busy” to be there, then was that issue that important? We need to seek to represent our companies in our state capital (and if possible National Capital as well) as we would if we they were a customer and value that relationship as we do other strategic assets – people, intellectual property, market position - in the company.

We need to fulfill our legislative responsibility!

You need vision?

Many company owners (more often owner/founders) question the vision setting process of strategic planning. Why? People who found companies are often gifted with a sense of what the market needs and while they are very visionary they are often filled with too much vision and end up keeping too many visions in place on the belief that they will be able to take advantage of a wide range of opportunities as the occur.

Consequently many companies do not have a formal vision that directs the resources of the company as it is viewed as too restrictive or limiting for the business that the company tries to take. They focus on mission, providing the market with capabilities and operate in a reactive state to grab what many would call low hanging fruit. Typically cost of sales is high for this type of business due the inability to correctly forecast demand and gross margins are not maximized.

This multi-vision mission approach can be very confusing to a customer company when they are looking for a strategic partner. Companies looking to sell to this type of customer and be the partner of choice take the time to form a vision of where they are going and carefully craft an intentional deployment of resources to achieve their vision. Companies that can demonstrate that they are committed and invested in one vision, not standing on the sidelines trying to grab anything that comes on the market in the short term, are more likely to convince a customer that they positioned to be a long term strategic partner. A vision that creates a compelling story of where the company will be in the future along with past and current activities that validate the ability and progression toward achieving the vision is fundamental in selling a strategic relationship.

One company that I worked with several years ago tried to get by just doing the mission level of strategic planning. After several attempts to sell to a customer using a “capabilities” sell for their multiple business lines the owner recognized that he needed a stronger future-directed message of “vision” to convince his targeted customers of where his company was going to take them. The next planning cycle focused on the vision message and they were able to craft a single sentence tag line that clearly communicated what business they were in. This process resulted in changes in the daily investment of the owner to work on his business and not just in his business. Now four years later the business direction of the company is tied to the vision and the customers that have been established that have selected the owners company strategically as a trusted value-add partner.

What is your commitment to your vision? Is it a token message not representing the commitment of your strategic resources? Commit to a compelling vision if you want to be a strategic partner to your customers. You need vision!

Is the Wave of Technology Innovation Over?

In a recent conversation with an investment analyst regarding a company that he was considering investing in he asked if it was necessary for a mature company to rely upon product innovation for growth. His belief was that if all the “big” development and technology frontiers had been crossed should a mature company focus more on milking a market rather than looking for ways to be competitive through product innovation.

I was somewhat taken back since in every market we continue to see companies use product innovation to enter markets or fend off companies entering their market. Apple is a recent example of a company reinventing itself through product innovation. Have all of the technology boundaries been met. No! As consumers we continue to press industry with high expectations for lower cost, higher performing products with high reliability under demanding conditions.

Successful products today need to be smaller, have more features, have higher degrees of integration and utility. The cell phone and IPod are a prime example of this compression of function, style and integration into an ever smaller footprint. Display and material science technology have been put to the test to deliver voice, music, video and other data to where we are almost anywhere in the world for an affordable price at the touch of a few keys on a keypad.

Design and manufacturing processes continue to evolve to meet faster product development cycles and the need to be able to manufacture in global locations with high volume, high mix and fluctuating or unpredictable supply of necessary components. Manufacturing lines need to be highly responsive to high mix and high volume demands under peak conditions. These demanding features require evolution in manufacturing technology, software design systems, and system integration to allow global integration and management of critical components in a highly secure environment where intellectual property is protected.

Our ability to manage teams of engineers not only in traditional corporate design centers but also using short term engineering resources located in other countries around the world. Effective product development requires project and management systems to have an around the clock communication and documentation environment so that product configurations are managed correctly, accurately and in a timely fashion to meet demanding schedules supporting ever faster product life cycles.

Looking back over the last 40 years we see the arrival of the computer, a rapid expansion of electronic products, the embedding of software to make products smart, the introduction of biotechnology just to name a few of the technology thresholds that we have crossed. Looking ahead we see research that is exploring the integration of engineered products (systems) with body tissue and the nervous system.

• Research is currently underway at the College of Engineering at Washington State University into new materials to extend the life of the artificial joints by having the material bond with bone tissue.
• New research showing people connected via electrodes in the brain conducting brain waves to a robotic hand causing the hand to close and sort through messages in an e-mail program. We seem to have many technology thresholds ahead of us and many opportunities for technology innovation to take us across that will increase the quality of life in many ways.
• Apple is looking at integrating solar cell technology into the iPod and IPhone revolutionizing the traditional method of powering this class of devices.

Technology innovation is a strategic cornerstone for successful companies. Companies that allow there ability to bring technology innovation to their customers atrophy as they attempt to improve their bottom line and move into a position to “milk” their markets are putting their ability to respond to competitive changes in their primary markets at risk.

If you are investing in a company examine carefully where they stand in managing and delivering technology innovation to customers. Market leadership and security is just a technology innovation away. Don’t be a buggy whip in your market!

Is Your Company Strategy "Customer" Engaged?

Much is said about strategic planning and the role it plays in directing company activity. However, do all strategic planning processes result in an engagement of company resources toward the right activities to meet customer needs? I have been party to a number of strategic planning engagements where the initial intent was to develop a plan based upon internal knowledge (“they knew”) of what the customer wanted. Steering the process to be customer focused changed the tone and focus of the process and what priorities were eventually used in making decisions to deploy company resources.

The entry point to an effective planning process is market or customer data, needs, requirements, etc. that should reflect a variety of factors that influence short and long term buying behavior. In collecting and considering this valuable input are biases recognized that may be present in the process? Have filters been created which discard valuable perspectives and feedback that may challenge current capability, competency and internal preferences.

Validating the beginning point to the strategic planning process is essential to having an engaged strategy. This adds to the front end work of the process but unless the a good “unbiased” analysis is made of what is driving the customer in their markets and how that will ripple down to purchasing your services you a re likely to have a strategic planning misfire.

Absorbing good customer input may be difficult as it may question the existence of lines of business, business practices and product technology that all have their internal, highly influential, champions. Effective company leadership will call into question whether the strategic planning process is aligning resources and actions toward changing customer needs or whether internal forces are active resisting and defending current direction and practices.

Changes in the marketplace will often impose demanding changes to current business direction. An organization staffed with people prepared to make the necessary adjustments to what they are doing to meet customer requirements will be highly competitive. Effectively responding to customer demands will create business opportunities.

Make sure that your strategic planning process is engaged with the customer!

Resolve Conflict Productively

Conflict in high performance organizations is unavoidable and can often lead to reduced productivity and ineffective employee teamwork but successful organizations are effective at resolving conflict and building on it. Too many owners and senior managers instill conflict so that they keep their organization on the edge. However, pointless and intentional conflict is non-productive leading to organizations that are ineffective, breeding mistrust and insecurity.

Several years ago client complained of a recurring incident with one of his key field project managers over what he considered to be core performance issue. I was familiar with the project manager and when I approached him on the subject he viewed the incident from a completely different perspective which revealed an obvious communication problem. I invited both the owner (my client) and the project manager to a breakfast meeting along with another peer project manager. I described the issue that was a concern to the owner and both project managers immediately described a broader set of circumstances that the owner was not considering when looking only at the one issue.

To his credit the owner recognized the problem immediately. While he was upset over the issue he had never taken the time to sit down and explain his reasoning on why he felt it was a job requirement that the project managers should perform first over all other priorities. His past method of dealing with it when he observed this occurring was to get excited and to take over instead of sitting down and going through what he felt should have been done and to understand why it had not been performed.

The project managers commented after the meeting that it was the first time that they had really talked about the business with the owner and that they now felt they had a good base line on which to discuss other issues with the owner instead of experiencing a blow up and confused signals as they interacted with him in the field.

Six months later I asked the owner how things were going with the project managers and he said that as a result of the breakfast meeting many other issues had been dealt with and the project mangers were doing very well and were now managing more project dollars – cost effectively – than they had before.

The key here was resolving the conflict quickly and establishing a foundation for communication and implementing a policy to resolve misunderstanding rather than carrying frustration and mistrust about on a daily basis. Resolving conflict is not a function of who wins and who loses but the company being more effective and productive with employees who are confident that they can interact effectively in demanding situations and when needed quickly get to the bottom of conflict issues, resolving them efficiently and in the end building a stronger organization.

If you are the owner of a company or senior manager look for ways to reveal conflict in your organization.

• Make contact with your employees informally so that they can see that you are approachable and can share issues of concern.
• Be proactive in discussing "conflict" issues that will encourage feedback and identify who and what are at issue.
• Follow-up to make sure that the conflict has not resurfaced under different cover.
• If necessary, remove chronic sources of conflict through reassignment, reorganization or release from the company.

Know Your Customer

Too often as business owners we believe we know our customers but too often knowledge of your customer is the result of "crisis" contact when something unexpected occurred or when you wanted something - like an order. Consequently our impressions of the customer’s “need” can be blurred due to the immediacy of the moment and not the result of a conscious effort to sit down and discuss what customers are really challenged with and what important needs are poorly met or not at all.

When we want to get market information necessary to define a new product or service specification our impulse is to talk to customers, but do we have the right contact in the company to get valuable information. A recent client of mine wanted to undergo a Voice of the Customer process which is by definition dependant upon valid customer input. However, the majority of the contacts within their prime customers were those who processed orders today who were not in positions to provide input on where the needs of their customers were taking them over the next planning horizon.

Developing trusted relationships with your key customers takes time, initiative commitment and perseverance.

• Customers are also busy and are not interested in wasting their time so make a customer contact worthwhile in not only getting information that you desire but also sharing information that is of value to the customer.
• Customers will rarely invite you to their door so it will take initiative to overcome the competing priorities for their time to schedule time with you.
• Do something with the results from your meeting so that the customer can see that there is a productive reason to make time to see you.
• Seek your customer out and do not take refusal to meet as personal rejection but as the mark of a busy person particularly in the early stages of building your relationship.

Conducting a proactive relationship with your customer opens the door to feedback that you might not always get through normal communication and company contacts. A customer once told another client of mine about a circumstance with their product delivery that obviously was not what the client wanted the customer to experience. When he pursued why they did not learn of it earlier he was told that until he showed interest in “knowing” them they assumed that he and his staff were satisfied with a mediocre company performance and as a result they were actively seeking other companies to provide better service..

A healthy customer relationship will over time result in a trusted partner relationship where valuable insights can be gained that will allow you to adjust your product or service offering to meet the changing demands and directions of your current customers and those companies that you would hope to do more business with.

Know your customer!