Can Companies with fewer than 500 employees do effective training and should they?

Universally, companies with fewer that 500 employees are pretty poor at training employees.  The reasons for this are understandable and many, starting with flat organizations, populated by doers and a mindset that people are hired to add value. 

The reasons that training becomes more important to a company as it grows from 15 to 50 10 120 employees are just as universal: employees stop providing as much value if they are not challenged and developed; self-learners are extremely rare; companies whose employees, processes and systems don’t improve get stuck/complacent at points in their growth. 

So, what’s a CEO/Company to do?  Here are a few options that reduce risk, improve sustainable growth and provide size appropriate focus to the training that is needed:  Recognize training is important and that training is something you model; no what your company can train and what training it may not be able to provide. 

If you are an executive or business owner without a coach, then you don’t yet recognize that training is important or that it is something you model.  I know of no professional athlete who is without a trainer/coach.  Maybe they know something you don’t know?  If you are getting coaching ask yourself how much you are communicating its value to your team/employees?  Do you have goals for the coaching you receive and do you share those goals/KPI’s?  Do you include your key reports in the coaching process? 

As to training others… I have found that in most companies of the 15 and 50 employee size, that they are best at technical training, next best at operational training and usually weakest in training leadership, management and supervisory skills (soft skills:  communication, professional improvement, etc.).  These are important roles/skills and tools.  They should be a part of employees professional improvement plan and there should be some budget attached to the training involved. 

Back to the technical training…. If you make something, provide a service or distribute something, the knowledge base and tools to do it and do it better are likely to be within your and your employees wheelhouse.  Meaning that you have best practices, skills and tools that can be taught.  The companies that do this the best focus on three aspects of training: the provide training in very narrow areas and cross train; they train people to train and make the training a constant part of employee’s jobs. 

So, what works in your company?  How did you initiate training?  How did you make sure that training was a part of what everyone does? 

Character Strengths of the Leader — Are you developing yours?

Today we have a guest blog from Marty Vondrell:

Do you know somebody in a leadership role that you don’t enjoy working with because of how they are being at times? Do they speak to you in a way that makes you want to move away from them or even do something worse?

And for the people that must work for the leader - Do you think they want to follow this leader?  Do they give them full effort?  Or do they give them the least amount of discretionary effort they can without losing their job?  Or worse yet, do they actively work against the leader?

Could this be the reason that the leader is less successful than their potential? Are they derailing their business success because of how they are showing up as a leader? Do you know this person intimately?  Could this person be you?

We all need to develop our character strengths.  Nobody’s perfect.  The research results are clear that character traits or emotional intelligence are the key to leadership and success in business. 

Fortunately, character traits are developable.  Unlike other factors of your success, you can develop them with a little work.  The key is awareness.

Leadership character traits are made up of polarities.  Developing strength in each end of the polarity is crucial to become a conscious leader.  The first step is to become aware of the contradiction and balance it within yourself. 

For example, one dimension of a strong character trait is the ability to take bold action in the face of scrutiny and disagreement.  At times, a leader must be able to do this.

At the same time, a leader must be considerate of other views and let followers be heard.  If a leader never listens or considers others views, the leader will have no real followers.  The employees will be coerced into action.  This will not get the discretionary effort any good leader is looking for.

Do you see the power in the possibility of improving your leadership in this way? — If you are willing to put some conscious effort into developing your character traits, you will see amazing positive changes in how people relate to you and fight for you.

Where do you start? —

•      Become conscious and observant of your own presence. 

•      Utilize a leadership model to become aware. 

•      Play the witness role in some of your interpersonal interactions. 

•      Without judgment — observe yourself.  Be honest with yourself about how people are reacting to you and the results the interactions produce. 

Where could you improve? How are you “being” with people?  What do you like and what could get better?

The next step is to pick one thing.  Pick one trait that you want to improve.  Don’t work on more than one but only work on the one thing you choose to improve.  And work on it ferociously.  Stretch yourself. 

Push yourself to the extremes of that character trait, both over and under doing it at times, to see how people react.  This is the work that will make you conscious about your character traits.  And it will bring out the extraordinary leader in you.

In a Decision Conundrum? Focus on What You Know for Sure

Today we have a guest blog from Lauren Owen:

It’s hard enough to make a big decision, even harder still to make a big decision that’s tangled up inside a bunch of moving parts. For example, I was recently talking to a CEO who was trying to work her way through a succession plan.  She founded a company with two grown daughters working in it. She’s got strong management in one division, less so in the other. She’s wasn’t sure either child was willing or even able to run, much less own, the company.

So it was little wonder that she was sitting with her head in her hands. “I don’t know where to start!,” said my normally analytical and decisive client. In situations like this, I like to ask: “What is it that you do know for sure?”

My client’s initial reply was, “Nothing! There’s a lot more that I don’t know. That’s what’s driving me crazy!” I pressed her further, saying surely there was something in this whole tangled mass of uncertainty that she did know. She came up with this list:

• She’d found something challenging and interesting for her to do after she “retired” and she knew who she wanted to be doing it with.
• She didn’t want to be involved in the day to day operations forever – her ideal timeframe was that four years from today she wanted to be out, not necessarily as owner, but at least as the CEO.
• She didn’t want to still be “on the hook,” for liability or financial issues (i.e. signing  loan guarantees, etc.) for either company once she was out of the day to day operations.
• She didn’t want either daughter to be working in or owning a company if that’s not what they wanted to do. (Or, weren’t capable of doing.) She didn’t want her family relationships damaged because people were forced (or guilt tripped) into doing things that weren’t right for them.
• The current manager of one division had proven himself a capable leader and manager of at least that area of the company and could potentially run the entire operation on his own, given some more guidance and training.

We still had a lot of unknowns dangling out there but we had the beginnings of a direction (retirement dream), a strong desire, almost like a North Star to guide her (“I want to keep my family relationships healthy”) and a date (2017-- four years from now). We used these to develop the outline of a plan by posting our flag at four years out and working backward from there. We left blank spaces for what we didn’t know and built a list of plans, processes and questions to help her fill in the blanks.

It reminded me of project planning where you’ve got a concrete project that needs to be done and a deadline for completion. You use that future completion date and work backwards from there to come up with key project milestones and interim completion dates.

It was the same for her, only there were a lot more blank spaces along her path. But that’s ok, because she had a long range vision coming into focus on the horizon and a North Star to guide her.  It’s a little like sailing to Hawaii. While your actual route along the way probably will change according to weather and sea conditions, you know you want to eventually end up in Hawaii. Besides your final destination, one of the few things you do know for sure is that your route will and should change according to the new information you gain along the way. But Hawaii still remains at the same longitude and latitude.

Facing a personal or professional potential quagmire? Focus on what you do know, not on what you don’t. Determine your own North Star to get moving forward and keep yourself on track.

Lauren Owen

Lauren Owen, Redpoint Succession and Leadership Coaching

Lauren works with businesses leaders who want to develop and execute succession plans, sharpen their business practices, strengthen their leadership, and create long-lasting value in their businesses. She is a certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Leadership Coach. She is also a leader of the Excell Puget Sound Southend Group.

(206) 427-2856, (253) 245.3518

lauren@redpointcoaching.com

www.redpointcoaching.com

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Today we have a guest blog from Shannon Bruce:

Every now and then I find a book that “cuts to the heart” with provocative truth. The title of this blog is actually one of those books. It’s written by Greg McKeown and is, what I believe, a “must read” for every Executive.

Essentialism isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.

Imagine that you had a life where you spent your time focused on what’s most vital, and that you “ditched” the remaining 90% of your “to-do” list. Consider the impact this would have on your productivity? Your aliveness? Your results?  Your impact? Your relationships? I want this sense of enthusiasm and ease that a “less but better” approach will have for you—the opportunity to be fully present, engaged, alive, playful, having fun and getting results all at the same time!

Let’s see if you could benefit from the disciplined pursuit of less. How would you answer the following questions?

·         Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin?

·         Do you simultaneously feel overworked and underutilized?

·         Are you often busy but not productive?

·         Do you feel like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas?

If you answered “yes” to any one of these, read on!

“The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the non-essentials, and then removes the obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.” Greg McKeown

So where do you start?

The answer is simple and extremely difficult at the same time. It all starts with your calendar!

Go grab your calendar. When you look at what is currently scheduled, what do you notice? Is it filled up with appointments, meetings, events, and activities?

Do you have any unscheduled time that you use to breathe, explore, think, process, or reflect?

My hunch is that you have “zero” margin time in your workday, and yet this time is critical if you want to create a “less but better” approach to life and work.

In the book, the author talks about the CEO of Linked In who schedules two hours a day of unscheduled time in 30-minute increments. This same concept was recently reinforced by Brian Turner, the former CFO of Coin Star who currently serves on 6 for profit boards of directors and is a well-sought out speaker. Excell Puget Sound, along with several other sponsors, hosted Brian Turner as our keynote speaker at our recent Impact 2014 Annual CEO Retreat. Brian’s comment, “you need to have two hours in your day of unscheduled time just to think”. It’s fascinating that 2 executives are pointing to the same idea of scheduling 2 hours of uninterrupted time in your day! Coincidence? I don’t think so. The time has come for “Essentialism”.

I know what you’re thinking…”Yes, but….”

I know this to be true because I’ve heard it from myself and many of the Executives I coach. “That won’t work for me. I’ve got too many things on my plate,” or “It sounds good in theory but there’s no way that will ever work.”

I want to challenge your assumptions. I believe it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t know how. Chances are you don’t have this uninterrupted time placed into your calendar because you say “yes” to too many other things and there’s no room because you’re overcommitted. And if you did have it on the calendar, you probably dropped it the minute someone needed you to do something because you don’t know how to hold appointments with yourself as “sacred”. I also believe the biggest obstacle to getting and keeping this time in your calendar is that you have no idea on what would you spend your time doing because your focus is on forward momentum!

If any of this resonates for you, and you have a spark of hope and desire drawing you to focus on the vital few, it’s going to require a different approach. So where do you begin? Consider the list below:

1.    Schedule an appointment with yourself. Make the time in your calendar so you can put energy and attention to plan, think, dream, breathe and explore. And hold this appointment “sacred”. My hunch is that you show up to all of those appointments that are specifically scheduled in your calendar for others. Whether it’s a doctor’s appointment, a meeting with your team, or a strategy session to discuss the current initiative, you’re there without exception, right? Offer this same level of commitment to yourself.

2.    Challenge everything you have in your calendar. Stay curious as you contemplate: Why am I doing this activity? Is it essential? What are the benefits? Is it still necessary? Remove at least one or two of those trivial and unimportant activities from your calendar.

3.    Challenge your “yes”. For every person or activity you say “yes” to, you are saying “no” to someone or something else. Identify one “yes” that you can turn into a “no” and do it! Focus on the BIGGER yes you get to embrace when you say “no” to the trivial.

4.    Filter your choices for long-term success. With the insight and awareness from #1 - #3, measure each activity and “yes” using a “good”, “better”, “best” approach. From here, take a look at each “good” activity and pick one you will stop doing. With the activities in the better category, proceed with caution about continuing these—stay aware as this could be your next opportunity to free your time. Redirect and focus your attention on the “best” activities that produce the greatest results.

5.    Fill the void. When you go from an overcommitted, “stretched too thin” schedule it’s impossible to just “sit and contemplate”. So fill the void with an activity that allows you to be reflective yet active until you can become comfortable with a slower pace. Examples—go for a walk/run and listen to something positive that energizes you. Better yet, get and read the Essentialism book.

So what’s your next step? If you don’t start now to focus your energy on the vital few so you can let go of the trivial many, when will you? As the title says, it takes discipline and today is the best day to begin.

SHANNON BRUCE

Shannon Bruce, PCC is a Professional Certified Coach and current President and CEO of StoryBridge, Inc. of Kitsap County. She has been in the professional coaching industry for over 11 years working in many capacities as an Executive and Leadership Coach, Team Coach, Facilitator and Trainer. Her diverse background also includes 13 years as a CPA with Ernst & Young, Corporate & Regional Operations Management in the wholesale distribution field, and entrepreneurship launching multiple business start-ups.

Shannon considers herself a Catalyst for Culture Change who is an “out-of-the-box” thinker looking for new and life-giving ways to enhance business results and team relationships. With her corporate background and coach training, Shannon understands the needs of both “people” and “profit” to help companies produce more with less. Her true passion & mission is “going into companies” to “create communities”.

Living in Bremerton, WA with her 13-year old daughter, Shannon enjoys quality time with family and friends in addition to reading, exercising and hiking.

“The Times They Are A Changin’…”

Today we have a guest blog from Elizabeth Andreini:

With apologies to Bob Dylan, the title of his song and album often comes to mind as I watch today’s dynamically shifting business landscape. You probably feel it too. The market is shifting, your competitors are making adjustments, customers’ needs change and your business continues to evolve. Nothing stays still for long.

One of the most challenging situations occurs when your business evolves so that your target customer isn’t the same as portions of your existing customer base. Your customers’ business needs may have shifted and you may no longer be the best match for one another. Other times a customer base is built opportunistically, and becomes a hodgepodge of different customers with different needs and wants, and these conflicting requests become a strain on company resources. Sometimes a low price competitor comes in and targets smaller customers who are more price (than value) driven and starts eroding your market share.

Here are some of the topics you might consider when you need to focus resources and clarify customer fit and changes to your ideal target customer:

Fit & Alignment

• How profitable are your existing customers? Are certain segments more profitable for you or are there certain situations where the solutions you offer are a better fit?
• Has your target customer changed or are your current customers’ needs changing so they want different products and services?
• Is your customer base a better fit for your older products & services? Have newer products & services been more successful with different types of companies? How similar are these two groups?

Transitioning

• What is the level of effort and cost it takes to service your current customer base? How far are you willing to go if a customer insists on a product or service to keep them but it isn’t one you want to offer broadly?
• What is the process for proactively deciding if you want to continue to meet a customers’ product (and services) needs? If you don’t, how do you mitigate the risk of them leaving or creating dissatisfaction in the marketplace?
• Do you want to “grandfather” existing customers so you continue to serve them while you focus on new or different customers and passively allow customer turnover?

Alternative Considerations

• Will holding on to your existing customers help block any competitors? What, if any, extra work or services will you have to provide to keep them satisfied? What is the resource cost of providing these extra services?
• Are there alternative products and services that can be offered to customers and others in their market segment if their needs have changed? Would a “lite” less expensive offering or a differently bundled offering keep them satisfied?
• How different is your ideal customer from your current customers? Is the difference size, type or location? What are the similarities and can you leverage any portion of your current customer base to help you move into a new market?

Not every customer is profitable and although it can be hard saying goodbye to a long-time customer, sometimes needs and the price a customer is willing to pay are no longer a fit for your company. It helps to take a step back and make sure customer needs and wants, what they are willing to pay and what you want to offer are still in alignment. Every choice a company makes has a resource and opportunity cost that limits your business’ ability to pursue other choices so make sure you are saying “yes” to the right customers.

Elizabeth Andreini

As the President of Accelerate Marketing, LLC, Elizabeth Andreini, is the "secret weapon" CEOs turn to at key growth points when they need to transform marketing and product management to grow their customer base, increase revenue & scale their business. 

 In addition to providing experienced executive insight and guidance, Elizabeth often works as an interim CMO or VP to provide the hands-on leadership needed tore architect marketing and product management and improve execution from the inside.  

Elizabeth Andreini, founder & president of Accelerate Marketing, LLC Accelerate Marketing, LLC
206-769-3420 or elizabeth@accelerate-marketing.com
www.accelerate-marketing.com
Twitter: @acceler8mkting
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethandreini

Do You Taste Like Chicken?

Today we have a guest blog from Dan Weedin:

If your business looks, tastes, and smells like any other business or competitor, why would someone work with you? Uniqueness is critical for businesses trying to influence new customers and clients. It’s easy to slip into “same old, same old,” which ends up the equivalent of “tasting like chicken.” This article will show you how to spice up your business.

I remember attending a Wild Game Dinner fundraiser several years ago replete with exotic hors d'oeuvres featuring animals that I was most familiar watching roam the prairies and jungles on the old television series, Wild Kingdom. They served antelope, wild boar, alligator, and cougar. The one thing that I most remember of the experience was hearing the servers proclaim about almost all the offerings, “Don’t worry…. it tastes like chicken.”

That adage has become a part of American culture, whether you’re describing frog legs, kangaroo, or cane toads. Chicken has become the generic standard that we base all other meats to. If it tastes like chicken, we are “safe.”

Here’s the problem. If everything tasted like chicken, it loses that joy of adventure and curiosity. It becomes stale and uninteresting. It’s just chicken.

The very same problem can happen to you and your business. If your customers and target market consider you to “taste like chicken,” then you’ve sunk into the abyss of ordinary and generic. You’re boring. When that happens, your viability is as threatened as a chubby chicken wandering aimlessly in a poultry farm. Dead meat walking.

How do you know if you “taste like chicken?” Consider these 3 signs:

1. You have no new clientele. The same people and businesses use your products and services, yet nobody new seems interested in your work. This appears to be success, yet it’s a fatal trap. No new blood means no energy, no interest, and no sustainability.
2.  You haven’t produced anything new in years. Whether yours is a service or product, stagnation is a killer. The world renowned speaking coach Patricia Fripp has said that sameness is the enemy of a speaker. Sameness is also the enemy of a business. No innovation leads to decline.
3. You live in a culture of “same old, same old.” If that’s your mentality when you get up and go to work; if it’s the mentality of your employees; then you’ve got a serious problem. In the rapidly moving business world brought about by escalating technology and global thinking, being in “same old” mode will get you run over. That chicken trying to cross the road today can’t take the same path he did 10 years ago or he will be road kill.

If any of these signs pervade in your company or in you, then you’re probably beginning to smell like the chicken dinner your grandmother used to prepare. Here are 5 strategies and tactics that you can implement immediately to mix up the menu to bring new flavors and add spice to your world and to your customers:

1. Create new intellectual property or products. Remember what I said about “sameness?” I don’t care what you do or what industry you’re in, you can create something new and exciting to offer your target market audience. It might be a workshop; a newsletter; a free webinar; or a new product that you created to help them when they didn’t even know they needed help! It doesn’t matter initially how successful it is. What really matters is that you have something new to talk about. Do something different than what everyone else is doing!
2. Boost your marketing. In the height of the recession, many small businesses hunkered down and hoarded cash for fear of running out. One of the areas they stopped was marketing. It should have been where they placed MORE resources. Boost your marketing by utilizing more technology, ask for more referrals, send out more press releases; seek out more interviews; and attend more networking events.
3. Fix Your Own Swing. My golf swing is terrible right now. I’ve been golfing for over 30 years and it’s time to get it fixed, so I need a lesson from a pro. Regardless of how long you’ve been in business. You can use your own “swing fix” from a professional coach or mentor. In fact, the longer it’s been since you’ve had one, the more you will need it! You can’t be brilliant or as creative by yourself. Seek help and utilize it to maximize your talent and opportunity. It’s worth the investment.
4. Get Out of the Office. We’ve become too tied down to our desks due to technology. Email has changed how we communicate in good ways (speed of information) and bad ways (stopped actually talking to people). Get out and see people face to face. Visit your best clients and customers. Make phone calls to those that you can’t readily see in person. Business is still about relationships. Remind them of what you look like.
5. Change the Culture. If the chicken taste has seeped into your workforce, it’s time to shake things up. How do you do this? Simple. Make work more fun by challenging your employees to create new things; help them grow personally and professionally; and offer mentoring to them to help them more rapidly succeed.

Bottom line ~ if you are perceived to be chicken, your goose is cooked. The business world demands difference and innovation; speed and accessibility; and technological sophistication and savvy. These are now becoming the new normal and those norms will continue to change and evolve just like menus in the finest restaurants in the world do. Does your business taste like chicken? If it does, don’t despair. You can always change the menu as long as you have the courage to do so. 

Who’s hungry?

© 2014 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved

Dan Weedin, CIC, CRM
The Crisis ConquerorP.O. Box 1571 / Poulsbo, WA 98370
http://www.TheCrisisConqueror.com
dan@danweedin.com
360-697-1058

Blog – http://Weedin360.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danweedin
Twitter: http://twitter.com/danweedin
Skype: danweedin

Inducted to the Million Dollar Consultant™ Hall of Fame – 2012
http://weedin360.com/2012/11/15/the-official-announcement

“Dan’s guidance helped us crystallize our somewhat vague ideas about what we would do in the event of a disaster, into a well-thought out (and written) Crisis Prevention & Disaster Recovery Plan.  We appreciated Dan’s ability to combine his subject matter expertise with an easy to work with approach.  Hopefully we will never experience a disaster, but there is great peace of mind knowing we have a plan in place for that eventuality.” ~ Steve Richardson, CFO AEC, Inc. (Portland, OR)

Intentionally growing your company - The changing role of the CEO: Your business model is a Key Performance Indicator

Recently, I began teaser introductions to the following five topics.  I believe that each topic is a key issue for growing your company from 15 to 50 and then to 150 people or more.  So, here is my take on that Holy Grail, on what companies and my clients need to focus:

Know Thy Self  

Look at Your People 

Culture

Processes/Systems

Business Model

Today we will focus on #5, Business Model.  When asked, almost everyone says they have a business model.  The question should be, does your business model work? 

At 15 employees, most companies take any customer and are delighted with them all.  What most often happens is that many businesses at this level, essentially focus on materials, direct labor and determine profit. 

At this stage most companies business models don’t take in to consideration all of the cost factors that have to be included in operating their company.  This recognition failure means that they become resigned to staying at this level.  The two most overlooked cost factors seem to be administrative and Top Management (owner may be taking a salary or may not; the owner may be doing what will become two or three full time positions). 

The personal costs are failing to pay the owner as an employee of the company.  Often, the owner is both General Manager and Sales force.  If the owner is not separating out their roles and the value brought in to the company from the ownership value, then it becomes very difficult to afford hiring the right people as the need arises and the owner let’s go of some of their roles. 

The administrative costs are especially front and center when a business begins to come up against competitors.  Pricing in small companies almost never takes in to account the costs of having people who don’t directly support the sales and production part of the business.  Initially, this gives the small company an advantage over larger competitors.  As the Company grows and G&A increases in both real dollars and possibly in percentage of G&A to the rest of the company, it will continue to be important to manage/control expenses and it will become more important to understand how to include G&A as a part of your business model. . 

As companies grow towards 50 employees one of the big learns is when a company analyzes its customers and find that some make them lots of money and others don’t.  This is often the beginning of a shift/change in the business model because quite often the early customers (who are loyal and love the company) are not what the company needs in order to further grow and develop.  This quite often means that the tough decision to move on from (get rid of) these customers has to take place.  Also, at about 30 employees on the way to 50, it is often the time that a company has to move to more experienced/skilled managers.  What often happens is the existing key employees dig in their heels around letting go of old/core customers. 

On the way to 150 employees, the business model again needs to morph.  The complexity of the business requires further analysis of who is a target customer, how we profitably address their needs, are we aligned to service that kind of customer and how do we close the gaps as we begin to compete with more sophisticated larger companies? 

At both the 50 and 150 employee stage, one of the largest issues is ROI (Return On Investment).  Companies find that they must re-invest in people and equipment with significant cost tags.  Much of the time, this is when a company that has been profitable, become unprofitable.  Anticipating these growth needs and keeping an eye out toward what the needs will be and when are critical factors in success at these stages. 

At what stage are you?  What is your business model and at what point do you think it may not work anymore?