Archive for April, 2011
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
Of the many issues with which we wrestle each day, one certain truth is: the future will not look like the present. Global competition, technology, and innovation will define the future. Yet many leaders continue to lead, manage, and operate as they have in the past.
There is a story by Price Pritchett in which he recounts his experience of viewing firsthand a life and death struggle that occurred just a few feet away from where he was sitting. He was watching a fly burn out the last of its short life’s energy in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of a windowpane. The frenzied effort of the fly gave no hope for survival. Ironically, had the fly just flown in another direction, it could have easily escaped through an open door.
All too often, we are like the fly. We try harder doing the same things, when instead we need to do different things. We must break the shackles of conformity, challenge the routine, and break out of existing paradigms. At the core of succeeding in today’s competitive environment is the ability to constantly improve and reinvent the way we do business. The key to working smarter is knowing the difference between motion and direction, between activity and focused action.
To lead, we must be adept at balancing what must stay constant with what must change. Nurture a culture in which people are encouraged to seek new and better methods, while feeling secure in the familiar and in the future success of their organization. Align all resources and strategies toward the realization of the vision and goals.
Alignment is the balanced harmony between people, processes, resources, and departments. It is a matter of aligning your vision with people, strategy, structure, and processes with focus on the customer and a foundation of core values. Because they are interdependent, they must be congruent. When all five critical components are aligned, results will continue to improve. If there is conflict between any two issues, there can be dissolution of the whole. If people have the knowledge necessary to create positive change, but your processes make it too difficult for them to do so, motivation will wane and maintaining the status quo remains easier. If you are able through a shared vision to raise the level of motivation that exists in your organization, but your structure restricts innovation or high levels of productivity, the improvement will be temporary at best. All of the parts are important to the whole. Everyone becomes focused on doing the right things right, which results in organizational health, accelerated positive change, and strategic growth. Encourage people to be responsible for their own performance. When all five critical organizational components are aligned with a focus on the customer, results will continue to improve.
“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat may come along and make a fortuitous life preserver. This is not to say, though, that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.” R. Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist.
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses achieve sustainable results through management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching and youth leadership. For information on creating a leadership succession plan visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: alignment, Change, global competition, Price Pritchett, processes, R. Buckminster Fuller, strategy
Posted in Strategic Planning | No Comments »
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Everyone in an organization plays an important role in its overall performance. It’s no longer enough to be good—you must be exceptional. It is no longer enough to have satisfied customers, you must seek to develop a loyal and delighted customer base. It’s no longer enough to “maintain.” You must be aggressive, responsive, and quick. The challenge is getting everyone in the organization committed and focused on achieving organizational success
To solve complex problems and sustain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing marketplace requires a broad mix of skills. It will require harnessing the collective intelligence of everyone in the organization. A team of individuals with highly specialized knowledge and diverse skills will provide you with greater mind power and more innovation. It will also provide more effective, implementation of a solution or idea enhanced with a well-coordinated team.
John Katzenbach author of The Wisdom of Teams indicates, “It is also well recognized by those who study the issue, that teams have been woefully under exploited in their ability to have a clear impact on the performance of large organizations. This despite the growing recognition of what teams have to offer.” Effective utilization of people through teams is a viable business strategy and management tool that can help you capture the knowledge of everyone in your organization.
Creating a winning team begins with creating a culture in which people are encouraged to challenge, to question, to try, and to innovate. Surround yourself with and create teams of the best people the organization has to offer. Bring people into a team as they are needed based upon their expertise or abilities.
Alignment must also occur between the team’s activities and its outcomes. If continuous improvement is to occur, teams need to focus on improving key business indicators. Therefore, measurements must be developed and reviewed regularly by the leadership teams to ensure progress. If teams get bogged down, it may be necessary to review the goals to ensure understanding, to review the team composition, or to provide refresher training on the use of team tools and dynamics. Get everyone involved. Pass along ownership of processes and problems to your employees that rightfully belong to them. Many executives spend far too much time solving problems that could be handled by someone else.
Competency is important when creating highly effective teams. The personal competencies necessary for teamwork are technical and interpersonal skills, possibility attitudes, and the desire and ability to achieve goals. Technical competency is a thorough understanding of how to do the job and the skills required to fulfill the job requirements. Interpersonal skills are those skills required to successfully interact with others. Possibility attitudes include confidence and a belief in one’s ability to positively influence outcomes. Each individual team member must bring high levels of personal and technical competencies, which will contribute to the overall team competence. This means that every individual has a personal responsibility to make a positive contribution to overall team performance. Every team member knows their job, but they collectively have the attitude that each person on that team will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Team building for high achievement depends on individual abilities in constructing relationships. The ability to collaborate, to be flexible, to share responsibility, and to establish and commit to achieving goals are important personal skills. Persistence and tenacity are contagious in team pursuits and are personal qualities that must be developed.
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Posted in Team Building | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
When you begin to think of yourself as a successful leader, you realize that there are more demands on your time than you can possibly fill. This is a common problem faced by many leaders. The solution to this challenge is developing a process of effective delegation. However, delegation is an important tool that many leaders hesitate to use, and it has been the downfall of many leaders. The biggest barrier to delegation is overcoming the attitude that you must do it all! It becomes a leader’s curse when you adhere to the adage, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
 Delegation is very different from simply assigning someone a task or project that falls into his or her established job description or requirements. When you delegate, you give someone else one of your job tasks to complete with the authority and control to complete it properly. Delegation is not abdication. You share accountability for the assignment, which is why checkpoints are established to monitor overall progress. Just as the outcomes of your entire department are your responsibility, you are also responsible for the ultimate success of the delegation process.
When delegation is done properly and for the right reasons, it helps foster a climate of trust and creates growth opportunities for your employees. Here are five principles that can help you create an effective delegation process.
- Determine what you will delegate. Effective delegation begins with defining your responsibilities. Write down all of your activities and responsibilities. Review your master list and categorize all of the items into two secondary lists: things you alone must do and things that others could do or help you complete. Anything that falls into the second list presents an opportunity for delegation.
- Choose the right person to delegate the task to. Andrew Carnegie said, “The secret to success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right person to do it.” The key to finding the right person to delegate an assignment to is matching skills and attitude to the task at hand.
- Clarify the desired results. When the results are clear, it allows the employee to use his or her own creativity and resources to accomplish the task. An added benefit of effective delegation is the individual may find a better and more effective way to accomplish the task or achieve the desired results.
- Clearly define the employee’s responsibility and authority as it relates to the delegated task. Clearly communicate the expectation, responsibilities, and timeline. Be sure to ask the employee to share his or her understanding.
- Establish a follow up meeting or touch points. The follow up meetings should be focused on two things—monitoring progress and determining the need for assistance. The number of follow up meetings will vary based on the scope of the task or project and whether the employee is new or a long term member of the department.
Once you have created a solid process for delegation, stick to it, and avoid reverse delegation. At times, a team member may try to dump the delegated task back to you, and you may feel tempted to take it back especially if he or she seems to be struggling. Helping him or her stretch outside his or her comfort zone is all part of a positive growth and development. Use the scheduled follow up meetings to manage the delegation process, provide encouragement, and monitor the results!
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: attitude, challenge, delegation, Leaders, resource associates
Posted in Business Management, Leadership, Management | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Sustainability, green, social responsibility, and corporate citizenship are all descriptors used to explain the initiative of businesses doing good while doing well. In our experience, developing a strategy of sustainability is a commitment to all people, all processes, and the environment while building profitable businesses.
Business leaders are becoming more knowledgeable about how sustainability impacts their businesses but there is still a large learning curve that needs to be addressed. In a recent ASQ research study (American Society for Quality) 40% of the respondents noted they are only somewhat familiar or not really familiar with the concept of sustainability.
Depending on your business, the opportunities for enhanced business by embracing a strategy of sustainability can be multiple. In a recent study by Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and the Hitachi Foundation (released in 2010), they verified several business opportunities generated by sustainability initiatives. It is the only research to provide a comprehensive view of small, medium, and large sized US businesses.
- 72% of the companies surveyed are reducing costs through improved materials efficiency.
- 58% are manufacturing or sourcing domestically/locally.
- 53% are increasing brand awareness as “green” or socially responsible.
- 52% are designing and offering sustainable products/services.
- 50% are providing customers with more information about products’/services’ social and environmental impacts.
- 48% are offering more energy efficient products/services.
- 46% are providing frontline employees with business training to broaden and improve commercial awareness.
- 22% are using sustainability as a market differentiator.
Many of the early adaptors have been large organizations and often their adaptation was forced by customer and stakeholder pressure, regulations, or sometimes both. However, the sustainability initiative is fast taking hold in the small to mid-sized organizations for similar reasons.
Case Study 1: Berea College located in Berea, Kentucky; founded in 1855; employs 485 people. The college focuses on providing a strong academic program as well as a holistic approach to social and environmental issues. Some of their early initiatives included:
- Developing a multidisciplinary sustainability and environmental studies program
- Developing an eco-village
- Developing sustainable agriculture
Due to these initiatives and the college’s long-term commitment to sustainability, Berea College used 52% less BTU’s of natural gas in 2009 over its 1999 usages, and provides 15% of its cafeteria food from its own farm and local producers.
Case Study 2: Johnson Financial Group, founded in 1970, is a full service financial services company and employs 1,267 people. A privately held company, they thought showing their customers that they had a commitment to keep operating costs down in tough economic times was a message of strength. Their sustainability campaign focuses on improving operations while generating social, environmental, and economic success. Their campaign includes:
- Reducing transportation
- Development green buildings
- Reducing energy use
- Education
- Paper reduction and recycling
- Waste reduction
Their results are clear. Johnson Financial has reduced energy consumption at its corporate headquarters for three consecutive years. One project saved 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, 17,000 terms of natural gas, and eliminated more than one million pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
Case studies abound of companies who have embraced the concept of sustainability, whether by choice or by force, and have found the strategy to be a sound business move.
Sustainability is a sound investment and not just another way to drive up cost and diminish profitability. It is about looking at the big picture and doing the right things for the right reasons, while growing a successful and profitable organization.
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation and a founder of The Institute for Sustainability, www.theinstituteforsustainability.com. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses achieve high levels of excellence and success by adopting sustainability as a critical success factor of organizational success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: ASQ, Berea College, Boston College, corporate citizenship, Energy, environment, green, Johnson Financial Group, reducing cost, resource associates, social responsibility, Sustainability
Posted in Sustainability | 1 Comment »
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