Archive for August, 2005

Off The Grid

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Dean Whittaker

What would it be like to be off the communication grid for two weeks? No cell phone, no email, no television, no radio, no newspaper…face-to-face communication only.

I had this experience recently while sailing in the McGregor Bay, a 4,000-square-mile provincial preserve at the northern end of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada.  The words peaceful and serene seem inadequate to describe the atmosphere.

What I learned from the experience is how “trapped in my technology” I had become. The frantic pace at which technology encourages me to live became apparent when I returned home.  What I realized was what the “24-7, always-on” lifestyle I live is costing me peace of mind, tranquility, centeredness, time to think or just time to be.

My challenge is to hang on to even a small part of the peace I felt in the pristine natural setting of McGregor Bay while participating in “modern” world.  How do I stay centered and reflective and still contribute to those I serve? Taming my technology would seem to be a good place to start. Now, where is that “off” switch again?

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Creating a Talented Workforce for Your Organization

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Tammy Hart

McKinsey & Company is a management-consulting firm advising leading companies on issues of strategy, organization, technology, and operations. According to a study conducted by McKinsey, despite the anticipated growth in the general workforce, there will actually be a shortage and a decline in the number of capable managers in the next few years.

The Changing Human Resources Role

There is a lot of attention being focused on the changing role of the Human Resources Manager. The traditional administrative duties, including caring for executive agendas and benefits coordinating, are being delegated to others in order to free up the Human Resources Manager to spend time working with line managers and contributing to employee development, training, motivation, and retention through goal-setting. They are being expected to be leaders in recruiting talent and assisting to achieve action plans. Marcus Buckingham, a leadership management expert, suggests taking a more innovative approach to designing a plan that develops employees’ talents instead of trying to correct their weaknesses.

The Interview

McKinsey and company suggest that you continue to refine your hiring process. They believe that a large problem with the hiring process is the interview itself, which can be based too much on emotions, first impressions, social confidence, assertiveness, verbal skills, and the interaction between the candidate and the interviewer, with not enough emphasis on the candidates’ ability and motivation to do the job. Instead the candidate should be assessed for organizational skills, leadership and emotional intelligence. Carol Hacker offers some great tips from her book Hiring top Performers; including asking for specific examples of things the perspective employee has done at previous jobs that require them to explain “who” “what” “when” “where” “why” and “how”. She also recommends using the 80/20 rule…listen 80% of the time and talk 20%.

Be consistent with performance reviews.

Performance reviews are fundamental tools for employee development, but they are only the starting point that should begin after the first thirty days of employment. They should be scheduled at routine intervals and made a high priority; however they should never take the place of daily communication. It is important to be firm and clear about your expectations but tactful at the same time. Giving honest feedback and holding people accountable increases the employee’s chances for success along with the success of the company. If you have done a great job at leading your team your employees should not be shocked by your feedback in a performance review, and the review process becomes more of a time to establish long term goals.

Retaining your investment

The old stigma about job-hopping being such a terrible thing is starting to decline and it is becoming an increasing trend for managers to switch jobs frequently (partially due to the ease of being able to search jobs using the internet). There is popular saying…”if they come for the money, they will leave for the money.” Your organization has to have something more to offer besides advances in pay and/or promotions, but before you start the recruitment process, take inventory of the valuable employees your organization already has on board and focus on retaining them. A recent survey indicated that talented managers are seeking positions with companies that are well-managed by great leaders, have tuition reimbursement, flexible schedules, and companies that can provide opportunities for growth and development. In many cases the recognition becomes more important than the increase in pay. In the event that high performing managers do leave your organization, it is essential to identify what the cause was in order to reduce future losses. Performing exit interviews and asking for their feedback is a valuable exercise and is a step that is often omitted.

“A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them.” Marcus Buckingham

www.careerjournal.com, www.cio.com, www.mckinsey.com, www.workforce.com

www.gallup.com

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Innovation Through Observation

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Megan Jewell

Veteran designer Jane Fulton Suri scoffs at designers who design for mere aesthetic purposes. Suri believes strongly in looking at human behavior for innovative designs to improve or develop a product. She calls them the “Human Factors,” and she and the group at IDEO, the international design consultancy, observe what they call “thoughtless acts.” These “thoughtless” acts are activities people perform every day, whether they’re brushing their teeth or pumping their gas. Suri observes how it is done and then looks for the less obvious: the way the experience could have been better.

The outcome of such observations have brought rubber grips to Oral-B toothbrushes, raised the height of Even-Flo’s strollers, and streamlined DePaul Health Center’s check-in processes. Suri’s group traveled to Puerto Rico to observe people cleaning their bathrooms. She watched as a woman cleaned the higher parts of her shower with a flat broom. This was then integrated into the Mr. Clean Magic Reach-a bathroom cleaning system with a telescoping pole. Proctor & Gamble, owner of the Mr. Clean brand, expects to sell $150 million of them this year.

The process she has refined uses empathy as a tool of design and design as a tool to uncover opportunities-whether to improve products or develop new ones.

So what does this mean for you? If you are able to open your eyes to the world around you and observe people and situations, you may learn a lot. Your primary source of information comes from observing. This is the best way to gather the information you may be looking for. Do you serve your area to the best of your ability? Is there a way to better design your current goals and strategies to better understand what it is that your community needs and desires? When is the last time you sat in the local park and watched the people around you? You can learn a great deal from looking at the parking lots of local stores about how they are doing. Are cars overflowing into the surrounding areas, or is there grass growing up in the parking lot with nary a “rush hour” at the store? There is so much we can learn from one another without even saying a word!

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Budgeting, Forecasting, Planning

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Joel Burgess

Budgeting, forecasting, and planning are all forms of financial management. The three components are interdependently bound to produce sound budget policy. But each piece has its own independent purpose.

For example, in a session of Congress, the fiscal year starts on October 1, and each session begins and involves budget year (budgeting), out-year ( forecasting), and current year ( planning) analysis.

Budgeting

In the world of budgetary authority – appropriations, authorizations, direct spending, and outlays – budgeting, stealing directly from Aaron Wildavsky and Naomi Caiden, is concerned with “translating financial resources into human purposes.” Budgeting should also be viewed as a prediction or a contract. Budgets can be consensual, conflicting, historical, social, fragmented, simplified, sequential, and repetitive.

Budgeting is conducted annually (for a fiscal year or yearly accounting period). Most budgets have a time horizon of four to five years and are instrumental in determining an organization’s strategic plan and goals. Within this time frame, the budget is also used to develop one-year operating units.

Within the budgetary process lies forecasting and planning.

Forecasting

To forecast, as it relates to budget, is:

-  To calculate or predict some future event or condition, usually as a result of study and analysis of available pertinent data.

-  To indicate or project as likely to occur.

Forecasting is conducted on a monthly basis to make yearly predictions. Forecasting precedes the budget year (usually beginning two years prior) for which it predicts. Economic forecasting that is accurate not only for the months leading up to that budget year but also for the budget year itself, will provide the basis for a more accurate forecast of the budget’s bottom line (the annual deficit or surplus) – hence the interest in the two-year period.

The forecasting process involves formulating problems, obtaining information, implementing methods, evaluating methods, and then using forecasts, allowing for greater budget accuracy to reduce costs.

Planning

To plan, is it related to budget, is:

-  To arrange the parts of

-  To devise or project some financial aim.

Planning is the fiscal year in progress. The budgeting plan consists of spending and revenue targets. The aim is to spend according to those targets.

Planning, conducted quarterly, is a budget projection giving an organization a baseline for measuring the effects of proposed changes in budgeting and forecasting. For example, with Congress, planning is based on the most recent budgetary decisions (budgeting) and shows what would happen to the federal budget if no policy changes were made over the projection (forecasting) period.

Planning by an organization does not focus on current variables, but rather on what the currency actually can buy (its volume of activity), thus allowing it to plan as far ahead as the budget runs.

Collectively, budgeting, forecasting, and planning are important because they form the base for strategic planning. Of course, a successfully implemented strategic plan relies on accurate and sound financial performance.

Sources:

The New Policy of the Budgetary Process (pg. 46-49)

The Office of Management and Budget (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/)

Congressional Budget Office Home Page (www.cbo.gov)

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Producing Results from Your Voice-Mail Messages

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Cory Koch

Today, nobody seems to be around to answer the phone. You spend time cold-calling, and all you get are voice-mail messages. You know people don’t bother calling back if they think it’s a sales call.

Because I kept running into this situation, I decided I had to leave a voice-mail message that would encourage prospects to call back. I obtained my best results by leaving a message that shows interest in their company by asking a question about their future corporate goals. My message goes something like this:

“Good day. My name is Cory Koch and I am calling you from Whittaker Associates, an economic development partner of the city of Holland , Michigan. We are extremely interested in your company and wondered whether we could have a moment of your time. Can you tell me more about your company?”

Most prospects can’t resist the opportunity to talk about their favorite thing, their company, so they call me back. Now I’ve made contact. My next task is to build rapport. I ask several questions about their company: what they do and how they do it. I never start talking about our company unless they ask. I keep the focus on the prospects. By the end of the conversation, one of three things has happened:

  • I’ve established enough rapport that I can call these prospects back and be reasonably certain they will take my call.
  • The prospects have expressed interest in our company, and I may be able to talk to them about our services right away.
  • The prospects give me permission to contact them again in the future.

Turning Your Promotional Pieces into an Appointment

When you initiate a telephone sales call, it is important to remember that your prospect is not as prepared for this conversation as you are. Before you called, the decision-maker was doing something: working, conducting a meeting, reading, or meeting with a client. His or her mind is still involved in that activity. Thus, your call is an interruption.

In the first 60 seconds of the call, you need to get the prospect’s mind away from whatever he or she was doing before you called and generate enough interest in your call so the prospect will want to stay on the line.

Below are some techniques you can use to turn many of your literature follow-up calls into appointments:

  • Identify yourself and the name of your organization. Never say, “How are you today?” to a stranger. Only sales people address people they don’t know this intimately, so it alerts your prospect that your sole purpose is to sell.
  • Go slowly with your introduction, breaking it into separate sentences. Remember, suspects are still concentrating on something else. Give them a chance to hear you and understand what you are saying.
  • Tell prospects why you are calling: to follow up on the mailing you sent.
  • Inject pauses. Give prospects an opportunity to speak if they want to.
  • Don’t ask your suspect whether they have read the information or have any questions about it. They may not have read it, or they have read it but don’t remember much. You will only embarrass them with such questions.
  • Refresh your prospect’s memory by presenting a brief overview of your organization and community. Personalize this as much as possible by mentioning information you have about your prospect’s company.
  • As soon as your prospect expresses interest by starting to ask detailed questions, begin to sell the appointment–in order to answer their questions, you need to know more about their businesses.
  • Ask for the appointment by giving your suspect a choice between two days. They will likely pick one or come up with a date and time of their own. Do not ask: “When is a good time for you?” Most business people are too busy to have a “good” time.
  • Throughout the conversation, always listen to your prospects without interruption. The more they say to you, the more they become involved in considering the purchase.

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Great Leadership

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

by Pete Julius

Great leadership is very critical to achieving high levels of success. Lack of leadership can lead to disastrous results and hardship. Imagine the chaos that would result from an army without commanders or a sports team without a coach or star player. Leaders are in charge of leading an organization to achieve a common goal. They are the inspiration and drive behind every goal. Leaders are few and far between, and difficult to find. They are a rare breed. There are a lot of good managers but very few great leaders. So what makes a great leader?

Leaders must have the ability to gain trust with all internal and external team members. It is difficult to lead a team if you don’t trust anyone or if the team lacks trust in the leader. The foundation of success will crack without trust. It is the glue that binds a team toward achieving their overall goals. A leader, and their team, must be able to trust each other that they will accomplish all tasks to the best of their abilities. A leader must do more than gain trust. A leader must also be able to know when trust does not exist or falters; they must do everything in their power to reestablish that trust.

A leader must be able to lead. They must be able to plan for future growth, successfully implement all objectives and strategies monitor progress and most of all lead the team to accomplish its mission. Leaders must be able to pull the team together and be able to identify everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. This will allow the leader to appropriately assemble a winning team. Once the team is set, the leader must be able to get all team members on the same page by collectively developing a plan to achieve their mission. In some cases, the leader and the team must create that mission. The inclusion of team members in the early going will help to establish trust and dedication of the team. Once the plan, goals, objectives and strategies have been set, it is the responsibility of the leader to drive the mission. It is the leader’s responsibility to put the plan and the team into action. No plan is successful without action. A great leader must be able to get the entire team in pursuit of their mission and to monitor the journey as it progresses. The leader is then in charge of working with the team to implement necessary changes.

Most great leaders have a wealth of experience, a well-established reputation and a proven track record. This is not to take anything away from those leadership prodigy types. Young leaders may instinctively have the skills to be a great leader but they do not have the experience. Experience is being able to head off certain problems and finding the appropriate solutions before disaster strikes. This comes from experience.

Leaders must also take the time to find the right people for the team. The best thing that a leader could do is hire smarter people. A leader must not be inferior to the skill sets and capabilities of any person on the team. Leaders must also consider input from the team, as well as implement some of their ideas. This will help to build that trust and loyalty.

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