Missing the bull’s eye
During the course of my executive coaching work I meet people that are struggling to deliver on their targets. This is inevitable for all of us at times and sometimes we are simply not going to make it, however hard we try.
A common goal is a percentage increase in market share at the expense of one or more of our competitors. As the financial year unfolds we cannot know how their strategy with customers is working or whether they have changed their business model or even whether the impact of the knowledge economy has resulted in a change in their circumstances.
So we may have to report bad news to the Board and there may little or nothing that we can do to change things in the immediate future.
The good news is that Return on Capital Employed is not dependent on merely increasing sales. There are a host of other factors that can be directly influenced by executive performance. We could acknowledge the figures and propose a strategy for improving the position whilst at the same time introducing other initiatives designed to augment organisational performance. Typically these include adding more value for customers, enhancing customer satisfaction scores, leveraging intellectual capital, reducing costs, finding new routes to market and so on.
Executives, irrespective of their core expertise, increasingly have to look at their work through the eyes of the chief executive – it’s the big picture that counts.
Talent at the top
In the Board Room it is necessary for each member to perform. When someone simply does not have either the skill or the knowledge or the attitude to deliver high performance consistently, then action needs to be taken.
Sometimes it is a family member; someone who is both a director and a shareholder, that can hold the business to ransom. In this situation it is not just the quality of executive performance that is under discussion, but the family and the shareholding dimension too.
If there is no such complication but someone is under performing for whatever reason, then there is a very useful rule of thumb that can transform the situation.
Consider a long-standing production director of an engineering firm called Jim. He is widely regarded as authoritative, opinionated, reluctant to change and generally unpopular with colleagues.
Imagine that the organisation Jim works for, suddenly vanishes. If by common consent, Jim would struggle to find another job, would be unlikely to find anything at his current level of seniority and would be paid less than half his present salary and rewards (that often accrues to long standing people), then something needs to be done.
That something is usually an expensive but worthwhile, parting of the ways.
Impromptu
Sometimes an appraisal is suddenly necessary because of a crisis; something that is both important for the business and at the same time action is required urgently.
In these circumstances we may be looking for the appraisee to take on extra responsibility, perhaps even move into unfamiliar territory.
Some might say that directors should be prepared to do this anyway – this is an ‘it goes with the territory’ argument.
But things are not often that simple. If skill is the ‘how to do’, knowledge is the knowing ‘what to do’ and attitude is ‘wanting to do’. And we have to have all three in order to be effective.
The good news in all this is that our own personal growth often accelerates when we apply our existing expertise to a new and / or challenging area of work.
On that basis, on balance, let’s go for it!
Developing development points
“And these development points,” they say, “what sort of things are they?”
Well they are anything that it is conceivably possible to do differently, that is in the interests of the organisation.
The idea is that if you are going to grow the organisation you start by growing the directors first.
One company director I recently appraised had three mobile phones. To this day no one knows exactly why he had three mobile phones but the fact was that he kept disappearing for sometimes two hours at a time and no one knew where he was – except maybe, the person on the other end of the phone.
One of his development points, at the end of a rather intense discussion, was to be accountable to his PA at any time of the working day.
Even if we are the managing director, we still serve the organisation.
Going all the way
People ask me how I do all these director appraisals. “I mean”, they say, “where do you start?”
Well I usually start at the beginning. That can be any question that it is conceivably possible to ask that is in the interests of the organisation.
This conversation may last for two to three hours and the more senior the director, the more crunchy the questions. There is nothing that we cannot talk about, providing that it is in the interests of the organisation.
And so it was that today I asked an Area Director of a plc whether or not he had “thrown in the towel?” Sometimes people that work in large organisations get pulled and pushed by forces that are greater or stronger or more all pervasive than they can hope to be. This can be as a result of, for example, organic growth. What worked ten or twenty years ago may not work today.
And sometimes the bigger and more complex the organisation becomes the more time that can be taken up with centralisation issues and process and politics.
Having said all that, we still have to come out, at the end of the discussion, with two or three development points that we can link to the bull’s eye for the organisation.
Beaten up
Sometimes you can meet a top team that have been beaten up. This doesn’t necessarily mean physically of course, it can mean psychologically.
Usually there are impossible demands being placed by a higher authority or the performance of the team has slipped so badly that there is serious absenteeism, poor morale and a general lack of confidence and self esteem.
It doesn’t really matter where this malaise has come from in the first instance. What matters is the determination to analyse, deal with and revert to a plan towards excellence once more. Sometimes there are casualties in the process but one thing is for sure. If you don’t sort it out at the top, the disease will spread throughout the organisation.
In the longer term, that can be terminal.
Tough at the top
Sometimes very senior people don’t have time to do best practice because they are “too busy”. It is interesting to work out why this should be, after all everyone has 168 hours per week.
Sometimes it is because they are fundamentally under resourced for what they are trying to achieve; sometimes it is because there is a lack of clarity about what is required to achieve, sometimes colleague’s roles are unclear and this causes confusion. Sometimes the business model doesn’t stack up.
You can encounter a situation where people have been together too long; they are cosy and yes they could almost do their job blindfolded. And they often have a very set way of looking at the world in general and at their business in particular. These are the people that are usually most reluctant to engage in a proper 360-degree appraisal with colleagues, because yes, it could open a “can of worms”.
There is always a reason why people don’t find time to do best practice on a regular basis. Whatever the reason, in the long term it will damage the business.
Leading
Speaking to some fifty CEO’s at Chepstow today I was struck by the amazing range of issues that people face. Makes me think that complexity is almost a problem in itself. Things don’t need to be this complicated.
Complexity, however it is encountered, is going down in value in the knowledge economy. Leaders need to know this.
Simplicity, on the other hand, is increasing in value.
Leaders getting tired
Sometimes you meet a leader that has had enough. It is not that they cease to be leaders; it is just that, in their particular environment, at this moment in time, it is all too much.
And that is OK because circumstances for all of us are never the same. So what motivates one person at one moment in their life may now seem to be flat. They may feel, for all sorts of reasons that they have moved on.
They now want to do something different with their life. Where does this leave the organisation? Well it can leave the organisation in trouble. How often do we all take things for granted, how often do we simply not put enough value on what we have.
In the global knowledge economy this is a very common occurence simply because organisations in general and people in particular do not know how to put a value on unique tacit knowledge, the stuff that lives in people’s heads.
That is why long standing, wonderful servants of organisations can sometimes stand up and suddenly say, to many people’s amazement, “Thank you, but goodbye”.
Illness
Right at the top of organisations sometimes illness takes out a key player. This may be for a few weeks or maybe a few months or it may be for longer but either way it takes out executive contribution.
What do you do? Well the answer is always ‘replace’.
The football team analogy gives us the answer. When someone is injured in a match we immediately put on a substitute. Why should it be any different for an organisation? Why should we make do, or get the people left to double up? That is nonsense. If we are playing World Class competition, and we are, then we need a full strength team at all times.
So what about this substitute? Is it for keeps? Is it for the short term?
Well of course the answer depends, but never try to second-guess it.
So much choice
When we head up an organisation, or at least when we are responsible for generating new business, it is absolutely vital to have an effective strategy that is put into practice on a consistent basis.
You can’t just flit around randomly attending this event or that one. It is about having some core events that will lead eventually to results. We also need some time for wild cards, things that occur out of the blue, that we may need to explore.
Finding out which organisations to engage with can take time and effort. Furthermore it is not the most obvious sounding or looking organisations that are the right choice. Circumstances are changing all the time. All organisations are either moving in a positive upward spiral or they are moving in a negative downward spiral. No organisation is absolutely motionless, except for the split second when they change direction.
So I have three organisations I shall concentrate on for the foreseeable future. It takes time to build up relationships, that’s why we can’t keep changing things too often.
It may be dull, but it’s adult!
The answer to the transactional analysis poser on this blog a couple of days ago is of course ‘adult’. For those that know the model it may sound kind of boring but it is the answer to appraising anyone.
People can and do get upset during their appraisal and top people are no different from anyone else. So if you have what you regard as a tough or difficult appraisal to participate in soon, remember this. When people get critical they are often in ‘parent’, when they get emotional then they are often in ‘child’.
The trick is to get them back into ‘adult’. One of my favourite ‘adult’ statements when the going gets rough is “Look, we all serve the organisation; if it wasn’t for the organisation none of us would be here!”
Not only do I believe this to be true, but it has the effect of taking the individual away from self and into a bigger picture. This can sometimes change people’s paradigm and then the work can proceed on a more rational basis.
Enjoy the journey
Part of our responsibility as leaders is to take our personal development points from our appraisal seriously. This is because you only grow any organisation by growing the people and this work always starts with the directors.
And so it was that last year I attended a boot camp run by
Frank Furness,
someone who has spoken in forty six countries of the world. At the end he said that those of you who make the commitment to becoming a top speaker would get to see some of the most marvellous sights in the world.
At six thirty yesterday morning as I was jogging across some meadow at Newmarket I saw dozens and dozens of horses being led through the town on their early exercise ritual. It was a cascade of colour and energy on a brilliant frosty morning.
Later on I got to share the platform with
Chris Moon, the legendary survivor of a Khmer Rouge prisoner of war camp. We spoke at
Tattersalls, surely one of the most beautiful and historic sites for events that we have.
Frank was right.
Staying in adult
Sometimes as part of my work I have to feed back some fairly unpalatable comment to director level people. They take this feed back in a variety of ways but there is no doubt that some people do get upset and sometimes they get angry.
One of the models I use to help towards a positive outcome for both the individuals and the organisation is transactional analysis.
Transactional analysis is a concept that was first developed by Eric Berne and published in his best selling book, Games People Play. He said,
"When two or more people encounter each other, sooner or later one of them will speak or otherwise indicate that they are aware of another person. The other person will then say or do something in response."
This is called a transaction. Transactional analysis is the method of examining what happens when "I do something and you do something back."
Berne said that when we engage in transactions with other people there are three possible aspects to our nature which could be used. These are our:
Parent or our Adult or our Child
It has been suggested that these three states of mind exist in each and every one of us and they are caused by the playback of recorded data of events in our past involving real people, times, places, decisions and feelings. It is sometimes easiest to think of this data as "tapes" that play in our head.
Guess which “tape” it is best to play when you are discussing challenging development areas for anyone?
Quality Control
I was working with an organisation recently that put some products out into the market place for their customers only to find that these products weren’t good enough. In fact the customer feed back was particularly critical.
There was a view from one Board member that it was unreasonable to compare their offering with products that are universally acknowledged to be World Class.
Unfortunately this contribution misses the point. When we are competing with the worlds best, it is not enough to say, “Well what do you expect?”
What you actually have to do is have very rigorous selection criteria so that the products you take to market are the very best that you can find and deliver. If you still get beaten then it is back to the drawing board.
But please, whatever we do, let’s not fudge the issue or make excuses.
Networking and loyalty
Everyone is talking about networking. Those that aren’t are either writing a book about it or firing off emails and blogs about networking, like me.
Networking organisations are no different from any other, some are moving in a positive direction, a virtuous cycle of development and growth, others are in decline.
In the UK right now you could choose from twenty that are active in your own locality. And then there are those that are online such as
Ecademy. This group has just hit 100,000 members globally. They talk about having ‘a friend in every town’. But you can’t enrol with all these organisations, they all take our time, our energy and our money, so which ones do you choose?
From a business perspective, I think it is important to spend resources where you are likely to meet people you could eventually work with or work for. Notice how interactive all the media have become. We are invited to comment or join the debate; our opinion on this programme or that show is suddenly “valuable”. Why is this? Nobody cared a few years ago. Well everyone is trying to buy our loyalty, they all want us to sign up and be part of their thing, their community, their world. And we do the same with our newsletters and podcasts.
Some networking organisations want you to make an annual commitment, some want you to sign up for life. I guess it’s a bit like dating really. Is this networking relationship to be a one night stand or are we pledging to become forever together?
Perhaps it needs to be a mix of both because you can’t build relationships short term and it is long term relationships that are often based upon trust, honesty and mutual respect. This means that some of our subscriptions are fairly permanent and others may have to be reviewed annually.
So which ones do you join? Well, like so many other things, it all depends on your bull’s eye.
Pheasant soup for the soul
I was driving
Heather Gorringe, CEO of Wiggly Wigglers out to lunch today. Not far down the road as we wound round the base of the beautiful Black Mountains of Wales, Heather asked me if I had more than one gear in my car.
I suppose I don’t drive particularly fast. We introverts sometimes drive slowly as this gives us more thinking time. Nonetheless, as an executive coach, part of my rapport with clients depends upon matching their needs, so I slowly accelerated and soon we were cruising along at about 30 miles per hour.
Now
Hay on Wye has to be one of the most spectacular towns in the UK for all sorts of reasons and that is where we ate. On the way back to Lower Blakemere Farm, the home of Wiggly Wigglers, a pheasant flew languidly across our path. I jammed on the brakes, the car veered wildly from side to side, but alas, an almighty thud announced the death of the unfortunate bird.
Now regular readers know that in the knowledge economy we all have to change what we do, change how we think and change how we behave. And the point of this story is that I have recently learned how to put links on to my blog.
