Family Business Management Isn’t for the Faint of Heart
I don’t know anybody who enjoys reprimanding employees, dealing with performance issues or having to fire someone. Imagine what it’s like if this employee is your mother/father, sister/brother, daughter/son, cousin or aunt/uncle. Managing isn’t easy and family business management adds another dimension to the equation: the family. It’s more than just having family members as part of the business. Families operate much like an ecosystem, and when one part of the ecosystem is impacted, other parts are as well. In all businesses, we deal with issues such as divorce and illness of employees. But we aren’t intimately involved with all the details and aren’t taking sides, as often happens in a family business.
Consider how difficult it would be if your brother-in-law who works for the family business is divorcing your sister. And in family businesses assumptions are made unlike those made in other businesses. “They will understand if I have to stay home with my sick child” or “I don’t have the same rules as non-family-member employees” or “I won’t get fired because I’m family.” It takes courage to make the tough decisions that are good for the business, even when it may not be good for the family. Family business management requires backbone, fortitude and a whole lot of chutzpah to continually focus on the health of the business instead of the family or family members. If you are in charge of the family business management, I applaud you, for this role isn’t for the faint of heart.
Coaching Employees about Customer Service
OK, I admit it, I’m on a rant today. What happened to the concept of customer service? Isn’t part of having a successful company a commitment to excellent customer service? Go on the Internet and you’ll find all sorts of statistics on how much easier it is to keep a customer than to replace them. So why aren’t companies coaching employees about the concept of customer service? How often when you called a company have you heard, “There’s nothing we can do about it.” When was the last time you had a problem and someone at the company took ownership of that problem and made sure it was handled?
Recently we refinanced our home. The lender owed us money, which we didn’t get. My husband spent about 10 hours on the phone with the bank before he found someone who handled it. Turns out it was an issue with the settlement company, but that’s not the point. Did this bank miss coaching employees on customer service? You bet!
I had a chip in my windshield so I called the insurance company to have it repaired. The appointment was set, except the technician never showed up. When I called the folks who were supposed to fix it, they said they had been billed by the tech so it was fixed. It didn’t matter to them that I said he never showed up or, by the way, that they had a satisfaction guarantee. My insurance company, while attempting to be helpful, in the end told me there was nothing they could do and they were ‘sorry for any inconvenience.’
Am I the only one who is tired of hearing that expression? Customer service has to start with coaching employees as to what they should do, your expectations and how to help a customer when there is a problem. Maybe the problem is that companies really don’t care, and while they talk the talk they aren’t willing to walk the walk.
Verbal Communications Skills: Leaders Are Talking but Nobody’s Getting It
Do you ever ask yourself, “How come I’m talking but nobody’s getting it?” How often do you find yourself repeating the same thing with no new results? Do you think your verbal communication skills are first-rate and it must be them…they aren’t listening, they don’t understand, they don’t care…they, they, they? Well, it could be them, but when it comes to verbal communication skills the sender of the message (that’s you) is ultimately responsible for the success of the communication. Before you jump on me, I recognize that people have filters when listening, may not really be paying attention, don’t ask enough questions and assume they understand when they don’t. AND it’s your responsibility to ensure they got it. The other person’s nodding their head does not mean they got it. How do you know if they got it? You have to ask! Ask what they think you want them to do, what they are taking away from the conversation, what the next step is…basically what did they hear? Verbal communication skills are more than just talking, and if you think that’s all it is then maybe that is why you sense that nobody’s is getting it.
Creating a Sales Culture Is Not Just For the Sales Team
When you read the phrase sales culture, what does that mean to you? When I ask folks I get responses like ’having our salespeople focused on selling our products or services,’ or ’successfully fulfilling a want or need of a customer,’ or ’meeting our sales goals on a regular basis.’ So why do we limit this thinking to just the sales team? Why don’t companies adopt the idea of creating a sales culture…one that is about creating value, being problem solvers, being customer-centric…why isn’t that the corporate culture?
Henry Ford said Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. While I’m sure no one in your organization says those words, isn’t that the message they hear? Phrases like ‘as long as you can wait till Friday I can get you the information,’ ‘we’re understaffed and can’t get to your request,’ ‘you’ll have to ask someone else to handle it,’ ‘I forgot,’ ‘you have to fill out the form before we can respond to you’…and the list goes on. Imagine your company if every person and every department thought and acted like your sales team, was intent on creating value, problem-solving and being customer-focused whether those customers were internal or external to your organization. Productivity would soar, team dynamics would improve, customer complaints would diminish, revenues would climb and you’d hear laughter instead of complaints.
Creating a sales culture is about doing things right and finding solutions when there appear to be none. Mark Twain said it best: Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Implementing a sales culture throughout your organization is the first step toward creating an unbeatable company.
CEO Coaching Often Includes Understanding Stress and Its Causes
The life of a CEO is increasingly more demanding and complicated. They are busier than ever, managing competing priorities, find themselves without the talent they need, volunteer, have families and want to spend leisure time. All of this can be stressful, and ultimately CEO coaching includes discussions on stress and stress management.
Executives want CEO coaching primarily for business reasons. Their organization is going through substantial change, they need to develop key leaders, teams are dysfunctional, communication strategies don’t exist or they need a sounding board for ideas. Yet at some point in our coaching relationship, the discussions turn to managing stress. WebMD provides a description of stress and stress management techniques. Not new ideas, but good reminders.
The problem is, often it doesn’t address the root problem(s) causing the stress, and without addressing those stress will rear its ugly head again and again. Often a factor in stress is a values question. For example: A CEO is working long hours and missing family time. Guilt exists because family is a value. Perhaps she has a value of honesty or integrity and has becomes aware of information she can’t share that will impact many people within the company. Consider if one or more of your values are being tested or called into question, it causes stress.
Another issue is around decision-making, whether it’s not knowing what decisions to make, how to make them or not making them at all. We assume that the guy at the top got there because he knew how to make decisions, and made them. You’d be surprised how often the question of decision-making arises during the CEO coaching process. Their decisions carry a lot of responsibility that can be weighty for many executives.
With stress management we often treat the symptoms. We delegate some of our workload to others, reprioritize our projects, take more time for vacations…all of which help for a while yet the problem continues to recur. Consider if your stress might be coming from not being in alignment with your values, or if something around decision-making is a factor.
Leadership Skill Training Should Include How to Deal with Competing Commitments
Time-management training, bah, humbug! I don’t believe you can manage time, and frankly, at times I think it’s difficult to even manage ourselves. All the time and dollars people spend on learning how to manage their time better, while not a waste, don’t solve the problem because we are treating only the symptom. Leadership skills training should be more than just better time-management techniques; it should teach us how to deal with competing commitments, as THAT is the problem. We are all very busy people and most of us want to be able to have a professional career we enjoy and a personal life filled with fun and surrounded by people we love. The challenge is all of those things compete for our time. And even if we take out the personal aspect at work, things are always competing for our time and often we aren’t the ones determining the deadlines. I’m writing an article this month on this topic, so if you want more of the ‘how to,’ read my article. But here’s a snapshot: Dealing with competing commitments can be a values issue or it can be an issue of communication, staffing, learning to manage up, learning to say no, perfectionism, too many projects in the development stage, not delegating properly…well, you get the idea. OK, I’ll admit you can learn useful techniques in time-management training, but if you really want to be successful, leadership skill training should include learning how to deal with competing commitments.
The “How Do You Change Corporate Culture?” Post Inspired Hundreds
A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post titled “How Do You Change Corporate Culture?” I received more than 500 responses to this topic, and comments are still coming in. I’d like to think it was my stellar writing skills that inspired so many, but I suspect it was the topic itself. So it got me thinking, what is it about the topic of corporate culture that had so many people motivated to contribute their insights? I don’t know the answer to this question and I am interested in your thoughts, so write and let me know. Is it the topic of corporate culture itself that is so interesting, or how to change corporate culture, or something else altogether?
Employees Performance Starts with Hiring Right
Every company wants outstanding performance from their employees. Every year companies spend thousands of dollars and invest huge amounts of time looking for the key to improve their employees’ performance. I understand why and I’d like to suggest that if companies spent more time on hiring effectively they would spend less time managing performance issues. There are hundreds of books on how to interview effectively, and that’s just the first step to hiring right. Hiring right also includes creating performance metrics for the first 30-60-90 days of a new hire’s employment. It means clearly communicating your expectations regularly, sharing with them how you want things done, and pointing out when they aren’t done to your satisfaction. What I see happens most often is a new person is hired and they are put through OJT…of the specific technical aspects of their job. That’s important, for sure, but it’s only part of the process of ensuring a successful hire. Employee performance starts with hiring right, and hiring right happens after they are on your payroll.
Succession Planning: Is it Necessary?
Many of my clients are business owners and entrepreneurs, and we often discuss succession planning. If you don’t have a family member who is the obvious heir apparent, what do you do? I think the question of succession planning isn’t just for entrepreneurs, though. It’s certainly a topic of discussion in board rooms and at meetings. Yet I don’t often see companies of any size with a real focus and plan in place. It’s more than simply finding the next president or CEO. It’s more than just finding someone to take over your business or buy you out. Succession planning should be considered for every key position within your organization. It’s about how you develop and build managers and leaders. It’s about how you cross-train, develop new skills in your current staff and build bench strength within departments. Whether you are a company of 20, 200 or 2000 or more, you cannot build a long-term successful organization if you continually have to replace your people. So what if, as part of your planning process, you included a plan for building new skills in your current staff? Imagine how much less time you would have to spend interviewing and hiring, training and handling performance problems, and determining how you get the workload covered if a person resigns. Of course, as your company grows you will need to bring on additional talent, and as part of the interview process you should consider what their potential is, both short- and long-term. If you wait to consider succession planning when you are ready to retire, take on a new role or when key people leave your company, it’s already too late.
Leadership in Business: Enforcing Non-compete Agreements
A recent article in HR Executive Online discussed non-compete agreements. The article explained how social media is impacting non-compete agreements. You can read the article here: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=436127008. Reading the article got me thinking about the importance of leadership in business creating non-compete agreements. Many companies already have these agreements in place. Frankly, I often believe it’s more of a scare tactic than anything else. How often do companies actually go after someone who has violated a non-compete? I don’t have any statistics, though I attempted to find them on the Internet, but I’m betting it’s less than 25% of the time. I’m also betting that very few companies take the time to even check out if someone is violating a non-compete. The HR Executive article points out that with the rise of technology and social media, employees have an increasing number of ways to violate non-competes. Creating non-compete agreements is the first step toward handling the problem. But as a leadership-in-business skill, enforcing non-competes is where the rubber meets the road. If you aren’t willing to enforce, why bother having them?
