Management vs Leadership Part III – Clarity to be Achieved

 PART III

CLICK FOR PART I

CLICK FOR PART Ii

In the previous installments, we discussed how leadership is one of the biggest problems in business. Not because leadership is bad but because there is a lack of management leading to the leadership. Next, we discussed that for your business to achieve its desired results, your team must have the clarity to perform. Does your team know how to perform their job well? Do they actually know what their job is?

As we mentioned previously, first we make sure they know what their job is, give them a good job description, a checklist or system, and micro-managing or mentor to make sure they do the job correctly.

Now that there is clarity of what they are responsible for, they need to create a daily list of what they need to achieve each day to stay on target to the end goal. This should be done at the end of every day. It's something that every person in every position in the company should do from the owner to the janitor. 

If you want higher productivity out of your people, literally make sure that before they leave the office, the warehouse or where ever they work, they leave a list of what needs to get done and achieved tomorrow. If they are not doing that, their productivity will be much lower. We have found that there is about a 30% increase in productivity with employees when we start doing that. 

Now as a manager, you can review this list to make sure they are focused on the most important and profitable tasks. The daily lists are one thing, you want them to learn how to prioritize, put each task in a time frame and prioritize it for the next day. This all starts with the list.  

Think about it, before you went away on vacation you made a list of what needed to get done. Checklists, todo lists work very well as part a management system. If you want to manage your people better, definitely have them know their job but also that you know what they are doing each day.

Now the daily list becomes a weekly list. Why do we need a weekly list? 

Simply put, we are going to have 2 meetings with all our employees to get away from being a reactive manager to being a proactive manager. (We will discuss these two meetings in the next segment) 

Reactive management started with the whole open-door policy. You can always come and ask me a question. What happens is they end up coming at any time of the day and ask you stupid questions and you give them an answer. These interruptions make you less productive and less profitable.

Answering questions are one of the biggest things that managers have to stop. If you are going to train someone, you are going to have to stop answering them and start asking them questions. Stop being the Super Hero and being the one to solve every problem. Train your team to be problem solvers.

In the next segment, we are going to discuss how to get out of the Super Hero syndrome and begin to become the leader.

It's Time to Re-Define Team Training - Traditional Training is Dead

Why mainstream Leadership Training Has Expired!

It’s a given that people rarely follow advice, even when it’s good for them! We see examples everywhere – we are told by doctors to stop smoking, limit drinking, lose weight or make lifestyle changes. 

However even when faced with an immediate threat, we rarely change our behaviors.

This is because we are creatures of habit who crave constant familiarity in life. These habits are coded to keep us safe, meaning we rarely get uncomfortable enough to grow. 

This is the reason there are so few leaders in life because to be a great leader you must continually get yourself into uncomfortable situations where you are forced to grow mentally. We also possess strands of DNA passed on from our ancestors that do and do not serve us well. This DNA has its tentacles firmly rooted into our system and forms part of who we are today.

For example, I was recently forced to terminate one of my clients, as they were simply not prepared to do the work necessary to improve their situation. 

They had a degree of pain; they knew the course that needed to be taken; they clearly understood the why and the how, but they simply couldn’t take that necessary leap.

They wanted me the coach to do the hard yards, not themselves. After six meetings I had to remove myself. My client wanted to be number one in their industry, and they were on the way up. 

However, as the pressure mounted, the climb became far too great and it was a one step forward three steps back situation. I can’t do the hard yards for others. How can you solve someone’s problems when they are the problem and they don’t want to change?

The client must design his or her own path. As a coach, I simply shine a brighter light on the path to which they must walk.

The three key fundamentals to making leaders are:

I) Adversity in life

II) Continual daily / weekly laser leadership training

III) Experience on the job, with supported accountability

When I ask my clients what they think leadership is, the same answers always come back. Most will provide accurate examples of attributes a leader should and shouldn’t possess. They know what it takes to be a leader, and they readily want to change their behaviors to advance themselves. They just haven’t.

In my experience there are four key reasons why the majority of leadership programs are ineffective:

1. The training focuses on the individual, not the organization and the individual.

2. They are only made available for c-suite or middle management.

3. New individual and group leadership habits are not measured and made accountable on a daily basis.

4. Most leadership training is just theory based ‘knowledge dumping’ and not lived through and experienced, especially in a world where our minds are already overwhelmed.

Leadership theory based ‘knowledge dumping’ such as personality profiling, 360-degree assessments, 1, 2, or 3-day or monthly workshops and meditation are just a few common methods used to promote leadership and improve engagement in the workplace.

They all have their place in the training game, but to gain maximum traction, there is a new, faster and more effective method. It’s called ‘leadership living’ and all levels of the organization participate together in the workplace. It is an all-action methodology, which means team members will live, breathe and grow together as a united force. It breeds true engagement, uncovers more leaders and flows on via a waterfall effect to build a powerful and united culture.

Mainstream leadership and management training courses can be great in their delivery, and they do serve a purpose. Usually, the chosen leaders who are seen to have potential are given the opportunity to attend an external course. 

While these courses can be extremely inspiring when you’re there, it’s like taking a dirty fish from a dirty pond, cleaning it with new teachings and returning it to the dirty pond. The goal of course, is for the newly cleaned fish to come back and clean the dirty pond.

\

However, a few days after a clean fish returns to a dirty pond it inevitably loses momentum and becomes dirty once again – the pond is far too big and too dirty for one fish to clean on its own, or with the small group that also participated in the cleansing.

So what’s the number one key to the success of your people? Engagement!

Most forward-thinking organizations now appreciate the importance of investing in engagement strategies, implementing standard reward & recognition programs to motivate and reward good behaviors and attitudes.

Why Engagement is the New Leadership The Strategic Way to Win in Business

Small and medium-sized businesses are the life-blood of our economy, but they face specific, ever-increasing challenges. The world is in the midst of an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest challenges SME’s currently face is the attraction and retention of talent. Intelligent, honest, hardworking staff are critical to an organization’s ongoing success, but now more than ever, good people are hard to find – and they are even harder to hold on to! To ensure employee job fulfillment, loyalty and maximum ROI, the key ingredient that is so often missing is Engagement.

In a recent Gallup poll, it was revealed that only 13% of the world’s employees are engaged at work, and most disengaged employees would change employers right now for as little as a 5% pay increase.

The Engaged Employee - Does more than is expected.  Works with a passion and feels a profound connection to the organization they work for. They drive innovation and move the organization forwards, providing maximum return on salary investment

·        The Disengaged Employee - Does just what's expected.  Is essentially there in body only. They’re sleepwalking through their day. Marking time, but not energy or passion, into their work. They provide minimum return on salary investment

·        The Actively Disengaged Employee - Does less than expected.  They aren't happy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine the efforts of their engaged co-workers, often providing a negative return on salary investment.

Many organizations believe that strong leadership and an exclusive focus on the development of their leaders is the key to a winning culture. They are mistaken. Leadership is not the heart of your organization. The heart of your organization is its people and their contribution. Without actively engaged employees, the leadership message cannot be heard.

Trained leaders today have been overloaded with leadership knowledge and theory, but too often they are not sufficiently activated. We need to turn our attention equally to our staff, getting them actively engaged regularly through new, innovative and inclusive methods, thus creating a shared vision and buy-in.

It’s called ‘leadership living’ and all levels of the organization participate together in the workplace. It is an all-action methodology, which means all team members will live, breathe and grow together as a united force. It breeds true engagement, uncovers more leaders and builds a powerful and united culture. To ensure maximum impact and lasting change, everyone needs to be involved and everyone needs to be accountable.

Without HIGHLY engaged people, the leadership message cannot be heard

While these types of solutions certainly have their place, they can only be effective when operating as part of a broader strategy. The first step in the right direction is the creation of a winning culture. Strong culture and engagement are integral to each other’s survival. A quality culture can be defined as one united group with the same positive mindset owning and working towards the same winning vision.

Many organizations believe that strong leadership and an exclusive focus on the development of their leaders is the key to a winning culture. They are mistaken.

It is the people and their contribution that will make or break your business.

Organizations live and die by the people they employ – no matter what industry. Without actively engaged people, the leadership message cannot be heard. At the center of the most successful teams is the strategic empowerment and development of all team members, ensuring a clear pipeline to leadership and engagement.

In sports, the best teams know that success relies heavily on the contribution of everyone in the playing group. The trust and camaraderie within the team keeps them aligned and on track, and all players have the necessary skills and knowhow to be accountable, support their team, and embrace any level of pressure.

While business would benefit from adopting this sporting methodology, many attempt to do so with limited or short-lived success. Many of us understand the power of this line of attack; in theory, it’s great! It’s the adaptation and implementation that businesses struggle with. So how do we get there – and quickly? We start by putting the right system and strategies in place to ensure massive, rapid and sustainable change.

Are Your Employees WE or ME?

There are two types of people in every organization. The WE people and the ME people. If you have a critical mass of ME people you will always come second or lower. These organizations simply cannot handle pressure when it matters. WE will always WIN. The first thing you must do is ensure that your Leaders are 100% WE.

Collective Accountability

Critical for fast and sustainable success. It’s about ensuring everyone is regularly, and publicly held accountable in the right environment. All involved should commit to and regularly report on these key accountabilities which they set for themselves. This will ensure new habits are nurtured and old habits are purged.

Equality Creates Unity

Necessary to ensure team unity. The traditional hierarchical structure is not the most efficient option for businesses these days. Instead, successful companies are moving to an organizational structure that empowers, allowing employees to make more of their own decisions and avoid the rigidity of traditional models. This cultivates long-term buy-in and ownership.

Habitual Leadership Acts

Mainstream leadership training is generally knowledge-based, not action based. Habitual Leadership is ongoing and is all about actions. Leaders are not usually held accountable for the short or long term, which is why current leadership training strategies generally fail. We too often fall back into bad habits when returned to an unchanged environment. Sustained success requires consistent reflection and improvement.

The 2 Fundamentals

There are two fundamental requirements when building a thriving organization:

1) Quality systems, processors and game plans, which I call ‘the brain’ of the organization.

2) Quality leadership, engagement, and culture, which I call ‘the heart’ of the organization.

The two most important organs of the body are the brain and the heart, and we cannot survive without them functioning. They will work on small portions of blood flow, but they will be working harder than they should be, and it’s not sustainable long term. I liken this to analogy to most organizations that are just surviving. If you have an unlimited amount of blood flow, full of fresh oxygen, the brain and heart will work in unison at full capacity, and it will be better equipped if there are problems. This creates a thriving body (or organization).

Dynamic Flow

Good communication is the bloodline of any successful business, and if communication is slow, then the organization cannot flow. In larger businesses, departments often struggle to cross-pollinate relationships because individuals don’t know who their colleagues are, only what they do. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

'Group Activation Systems'

We now understand that it can’t be left to a few leaders within a business to create team engagement. Without actively engaged employees, the leadership message will be heavily diluted, and motivation will quickly fade. The heart of your organization is its people and their contribution. We need to turn our attention to our staff, getting them actively engaged regularly through new, innovative and inclusive methods. 

 Company training is the least desirable way to learn.

Instead, you need an all-inclusive Group Activation System that is neurologically designed and proven to reactivate employees. 

\

90% of today’s business leaders think an engagement strategy has a positive effect on commercial success, yet only 25% of them have a game plan!

In today’s competitive world, your people are your edge. Old school business strategies and ‘knowledge dumping’ training programs are no longer sufficient when it comes to employee activation.  The game has changed. Have you changed your game to keep up?

To learn more about how implementing a Group Activation System into your organization
can increase team engagement, productivity, and profitability and how you can receive a

FREE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY

Download our Free White Paper  

Contact Us For More Information Contact
Steve Goranson, MBA at 904-739-0200

ActionCOACH & Team Engagement Specialist

www.createengagedteams.com 

Management vs Leadership Part II – Clarity to Perform

Part II
Click for Part I

In the previous installment, we discussed how leadership is one of the biggest problems in business.  Not because leadership is bad but because there is a lack of management leading to the leadership.  In reality, most people are just lazy managers.  They just give someone a task but they don’t give them a time frame or a schedule or plan to get it done by.  Then we complain that they don’t get it done on time and correctly.

So let’s take a look at how we can become good managers as well as how we can operate as good leaders.

There are 4 keys to a good manager are…

• Creating clarity on how to perform  their job
• Creating clarity on what needs to be achieved
• Asking Questions
• Provide ongoing Training

In this article, we are going to focus on the first key.  Does your team know how to perform their job well?  Do they actually know what their job is?  If you were to ask your top 10 employees to write a list of what they think their job is and at the same time you are writing you list of what you think their job is, do you think the list would be the same?

Most employees don’t actually know what is specifically required of them.  Their job description is too vague and there is no reality about what they are actually doing and why they are doing it.  Or if they know what to do, do they know what the actual outcome is that you are expecting? 

Management starts with a really good job description or positional agreement. 

A good manager will be sure his staff knows…

·        What they are responsible for

·        Who they are accountable to

·        How to do it

·        Why they are supposed to do it.

·        What is the expected outcome when they do their job well.

Give your people checklists and systems
This will allow them to be competent in what they are job doing so they deliver the actual results that you expect. 

Good management starts when people know what their job is, what they’re expected to do, and at what level they’re expected to do it (performance standard), the time frame it should be done in.  They should also be told why they are doing it.

When you give someone a job and you don’t agree on a time frame of when they need to finish that job that’s just lazy management.  Some people call it micromanaging.  Yes!  Some employees need micro managing until you built their competence and their ability to do it.  You don’t have to do it forever but this is part of the coaching, training, the managing, and mentoring of these people so they can actually become good and productive at their job.

Next, I will continue to be covering the 4 keys of a good manager.  The 2^nd key we will be discussing how to create clarity on what needs to be achieved.

Management vs. Leadership Part I - Are you a lazy manager?

Leadership is one of the biggest problems in business. Not because leadership is bad but because there is a lack of management leading to the leadership. I would like to share with you what I’ve learned from my business mentor and ActionCOACH founder Brad Sugars about the differences between management and leadership. Many of us are trying to find the golden goose of leadership. We’ve read the books; we’ve been to the seminars, we’ve watched the latest TEDtalk on leadership. If you go to the bookstore or go on Amazon, there are a massive amount of books on leadership but there are very few books on management. If we think about it, the last bestselling book on management was the One Minute Manager from the late 70s or early 80s. Let’s take a look and define what the differences are between leadership and management. Management is about creating competent and productive people. They have a level of competence, they know what they are doing and they know how they’re doing their jobs. If a company has a group of people that don’t know what they are doing, there’s a lack of competency or productivity going on in the organization, that’s a management problem or issue. Let’s flip to the other side of the coin and take look at leadership. Leadership is about creating passionate and focused people. If the people in the organization lack passion and motivation to do their job and they’re not focused on what they need to be doing, that’s a leadership issue. The challenge that I see most businesses have today is that the business might have been built very well from a leadership perspective, but because of the lack of management, we got people that are not good at their jobs, they’re not that productive. They’re passionate and excited but we’re not getting the results that we want. So how do we get the results that we want to get in our business? This is not brain surgery. It’s not actually that complex. What I have seen throughout my career if someone gets promoted to be a manager in a company they don’t get much management training. In most cases, they got promoted because it was assumed that they had those skills. One of the biggest challenges they face is the transition from being “one of the guys” to being the boss. In this day and age, the lack of management training is extortionately high. Now, why is that? Simply, it’s because businesses don’t give management training to their staff. Maybe management got a bad rap somewhere in the 90s or early 2000s. The mantra was that you don’t need to manage your people you need to lead them. It was like leadership was saying that management was a bad thing. To get the job done, we need competent and productive people if we want to get the job done in any business. We do need to learn management skills; we do need to understand what those management skills are and how they work. Let’s now focus on both leadership and management. Management is where we start because if we see negative behaviors in an organization normally it’s a lack of management. When there is a lack of management I see that they’re in denial of how competent they are. They think that they are better than they are. There’s a lack of responsibility, people are blaming others and there is no team cohesiveness. A lot of these issues are around lack of management. In reality, most people are just lazy managers. There I said it. They give someone a task but they don’t give them a timeframe or a schedule or plan to get it done by. Do you have a system to manage your people and tasks or do you just wing it? As a friend once told me winging it is not a strategy. Over the next few installments, I will be covering the 4 key of a good manager that you need to be focused on.

Steve Goranson has owned and operated the North Florida office of ActionCOACH since 2004. He is also a certified team engagement specialist and a social media educator with Luv4 Marketing.  Contact Steve to discuss how he can help your business in the areas of Team Engagement, sales & marketing, and operational efficiency.

Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Do You feel stuck? 

Do you feel that there is a glass ceiling that is holding you back from reaching your potential?

Check out this short video where ActionCOACH Steve Goranson will share with you a simple formula that will help your break through the barriers that are holding you back and keeping you in your comfort zone.

How will you break out of your comforts zone?

If you are ready to break out of your comfort zone and want to take your business to the next level sign up for a Complimentary Break Through 1/2 hour phone coaching session and discover the power of coaching

CLICK HERE to Register

Case Study: How Three Moves Quadrupled the Value of this Business

Are you stuck trying to figure out how to create some recurring revenue for your business? 

You know those automatic sales will make your business more valuable and predictable, but the secret to transforming your company is to think less about what’s in it for you and more about coming up with a reason for customers to agree to a monthly bill.

Take a look at the transformation of Laura Steward’s company, Guardian Angel. Steward had gotten her IT consulting firm up to $400,000 in revenue when she called in a valuation consultant to help her put a price on her business. Steward was disappointed to learn her company was worth less than fifty percent of one year’s sales because she had no recurring revenue and what sales she did have were dependent on her personally.

Steward set about to transform her business into a more valuable company and made three big moves:

1. Angel Watch

The first thing Steward did was to design a monthly program called Angel Watch, which offered her business clients ongoing protection from technology problems. Steward offered her Angel Watch customers ongoing remote monitoring of their networks, pre-emptive virus protection and staff on call if there was ever a problem.  

Steward approached her clients with a calculation of what they had spent with her firm over the most recent 12-month period, including the cost of her customer’s downtime. She made the case that by signing up for Angel Watch, they would save money when taking into consideration both the hard costs of her firm’s time and the soft costs associated with downtime.

90% of her customers switched from hourly billing to the Angel Watch program.

2.      Doubling Rates

Next Steward doubled her personal consulting rates. That way, when one of the customers who decided not to opt into Angel Watch called her firm, they were quoted one rate for a technician’s time or twice the price to have Steward herself. Not surprisingly, most customers opted for the cheaper option and others chose to re-consider their decision not to sign up for Angel Watch.

3.      Survivor Clause

Steward also credits a small legal maneuver for further driving up the value of her business. She included a “survivor clause” in her Angel Watch contracts, which stipulated that the obligations of the agreement would “survive” a change of ownership of her company.

Steward went on to successfully sell her business at a price that was more than four times the original valuation she had received just two years prior to launching Angel Watch.

Steve Goranson has owned and operated the Northeast Florida of ActionCOACH since 2014. ActionCOACH is the World's #1 Coaching franchise with of 1000 offices in 50 different countries. They coach over 15,000 business each week.

Steve's commitment is to assist small business owners, to spend less time working "in" their business and more time working "on" their business so they can build a more valuable and sellable business. In the end, you’ll be spending less total time working, will be making more money and will have truly created the company and team you always dreamed of. In addition we will help you put the FUN back in your business and your life.


If you would like to learn more about how you too can get an "actionable" business education to improve your business's operations, sales,& bottom line contact ActionCOACH Steve Goranson to schedule a free 1/2 hour Phone Strategy Session  at 904-739-0200. www.actioncoachjax.com

Thinking Vs. Doing: The Owner’s Dilemma

There’s a steady breeze from the northwest, which cools the warm Caribbean afternoon. Framed between a palm tree and the turquoise water, you notice a man reading. He appears to be working, which seems strange given his appearance: shaggy blonde hair, linen shirt, surf shorts and flip-flops.

You squint and realize the man is Richard Branson and he just happens to be running Virgin Group Ltd., a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. He is working where he usually does, at Necker Island, a 74-acre retreat he owns in the British Virgin Islands.

Branson, of course, is far from a negligent founder, he has managers running the various businesses that make up the Virgin Group and visits his companies regularly, but he does not manage the day-to-day operations of any of his businesses, which frees up his time to think.

The train conductor vs. the thinker

Your role as a CEO/owner can be divided into two buckets: one for managing and the other for thinking.

The managing bucket is where, metaphorically speaking, you ensure the trains all run on time. In this role, you’re establishing goals for your employees and holding them accountable for achieving their targets. You’re making sure your products and services are of a high quality and that your biggest customers are happy.

When you’re wearing your manager hat, you’re scouring your company looking for small enhancements every day. This obsession with continuous improvement is what big companies call “six-sigma thinking,” but you probably just think of it as building a great company.

The other bucket is reserved for thinking and it’s where you create the future of your company. In this visionary time, you get to design new products, imagine new ways of serving customers, or contemplate where you could take your business in the years ahead. 

Your visionary hours are spent dreaming and imaging what your business could be, instead of worrying about what it is today.

The most valuable companies

The question is, how much of your time should you devote to each role? If your goal is to create a more valuable business—one that someone might like to buy one day—our data reveals that you should start gradually increasing the time you spend on thinking and hire someone else to do the managing.

Studies have shown that companies of owners who know each of their customers by first name (i.e., managers) trade at just 2.9 times their pre-tax profit, whereas the companies of owners who do not know their customers’ first names (i.e., thinkers) trade at closer to 5 times pre-tax profit.

Further, companies that would suffer if their owners were unable to come to work for three months, receive significantly lower offers when compared to companies that would not feel the absence of the owner for a month or two.

Finally, in a recent survey of merger and acquisition (M&A) professionals, we asked who they like to see an owner hire if they can only afford one “C-level” executive. The M&A professionals overwhelmingly identified a general manager/second-in-command as the most important role a founder can fill ahead of a chief revenue, marketing or financial officer.

In short, the owners of the most valuable businesses have found managers to ensure the trains run on time while they spend an increasing amount of their energy thinking about what’s next for their business.

If you are interested in getting a free preliminary business valuation estimate of what your business is worth call our office at 904.739.-0200 or start your free evaluation right away by Clicking Here

Steve Goranson has owned and operated the Northeast Florida of ActionCOACH since 2014. ActionCOACH is the World's #1 Coaching franchise with of 1000 offices in 50 different countries. They coach over 15,000 business each week.

Steve's commitment is to assist small business owners, to spend less time working "in" their business and more time working "on" their business so they can build a more valuable and sellable business. In the end, you’ll be spending less total time working, will be making more money and will have truly created the company and team you always dreamed of. In addition we will help you put the FUN back in your business and your life.


If you would like to learn more about how you too can get an "actionable" business education to improve your business's operations, sales,& bottom line contact ActionCOACH Steve Goranson to schedule a free 1/2 hour Phone Strategy Session  at 904-739-0200. www.actioncoachjax.com