Maximizing the Human Potential

Corporate Growing Pains

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andrew shaffer consulting corporate growing painsI once heard someone explain life as a series of challenges.  Life tends to throw a problem your way and continue to throw that problem at you until you figure out how to solve it. Once you solve the problem you never have to solve it again, BUT you will be presented with a new problem. For example, at one point in my kids’ lives, they wanted to learn to ride a bike. When they were learning they would often fall or run into a tree. I don’t know why they’d run into the tree it didn’t move, but they did. Eventually they learned to ride a bike – problem solved. The next problem was learning to do a wheelie or jump off a ramp. Then the falling started all over again.  As you can see life is never without problems.  Just like in life, your business has a series of problems to solve, like corporate growing pains. Today I am going to share some of these problems so you can look forward to what comes next!

Corporate Growing Pains

Most of what I am going to talk about today is my takeaways from the book Managing Corporate Lifecycles by Ichak Adizes. This book is eye opening and I highly recommend it.  In this book, Adizes highlights the fact that at each growth stage of a company there are normal and abnormal problems. Understanding and overcoming the normal problems helps you advance to the next stage of development. When you don’t solve the problems of any given stage as you advance, the problem then becomes abnormal and can and will threaten the survival of the business. On your way to becoming a prime company, here are some of the stages you must survive.

Infancy

Infancy is that stage when the business is born. As an entrepreneur, you decided to take a risk and start a business. You are full of optimism, hope and the future is looking good through your rose-colored glasses. In this stage of development, cash is king.  It is all about making sales and brining in cash. Cash is the life blood of your business and without it the business will go under. There are investors to pay back, there is likely bank loans and the entrepreneur needs cash to feed his/her family as well. During infancy the business owner’s commitment will be challenged. Negative cash flow is the norm, and the investors are always asking questions to protect their interests.  In this stage the business owner is focused on product development and brining in revenue!

Toddler

Once you as the business owner finally makes it past the infancy stage and is generating cash, you enter the toddler stage, or “Go-Go”, as the author puts it.  In this stage you want to try everything they can get your hands on.  Expand into this market or buy this other business. You are chasing just about every shiny object that catches your eye. And why not? After all you have survived infancy and have proven your business can generate cash.

This creates a problem where the company can become spread too thin. Perhaps you lose focus a little on what the company’s core competencies are. Your energy is too widely dispersed, and you lack appropriate controls to aid in decision making and process improvement. Often you are reluctant to instill the discipline necessary to manage all the new aspects of the business and resist any attempts by anyone to exert those controls.

Adolescence

Those owners that finally do recognize that they need to have controls, discipline and processes in place are ready to move into adolescence. Just like your teenage years, adolescence is a turbulent time. This is when your business moves from the wild, “let’s try everything” to “now I have to create structure so I can execute effectively.”  This is frequently when you, or your business’ board begins to hire professional managers. And, if you’ve ever read the book The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber you’ll know that a manager and an entrepreneur are at odds with each other.  The manager likes to create order and the entrepreneur is always looking for the next thing to go do.

In this stage there will be conflict throughout the organization. The founders will resist the manager, and the manager will resist the founder. The workforce will be divided with some people wanting and needing the structure that the administrator needs, while others will desire the freedom they had before “there were all these rules.” However, whenever a company can successfully pass through each of these stages, they will enter their prime, where there is the right mix of entrepreneurship, administration, controls, and processes for the company to reach its full potential.

This Week’s Challenge

I must caution you that I just summarized about 400 pages if information into less than 900 words. My intention was to highlight some of the normal problems have on their way to prime.  This week’s challenge is to understand the problems your company has, and if they are normal or abnormal for whatever phase your business is in.  Identify and solve those problems and your company can begin to thrive!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Creating Innovation

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andrew shaffer consulting creating innovationAre you continually frustrated by repeatedly dealing with the same problems? Are you tired of running into the same problems on every project? Does the inability to see new solutions to existing problems frustrated you? Are you fed up with “This is the way we’ve always done it?” If your employees are not as innovative as your competition, your destined to mediocrity or worse! You might go out of business! So, how do you go about creating innovation in your business?

Creating Innovation

Your business is will either grow or die.  I’ve said that several times in my writing, and it is true. In order to grow, your company must innovate. I have worked with companies that were stuck in the “This is the way we’ve always done it?” mentality. Because of that the competition was growing in market share, and customer satisfaction was plummeting. When this started having severe impacts on the business, we were able to turn it around by focusing on leadership and engagement. Here are some simple things you can do to help improve your company’s innovation and market domination.

Proactive Leadership

Proactive leadership means looking forward and not backwards. Leaders cannot spend their time dealing with fires all day and never take time to prevent fires. A proactive leader anticipates future struggles and is prepared when they come.

Performance Management

Performance management is one of the fundamental responsibilities of a leader. Teach leaders how to do this on a continuous basis. And, show leaders how that actually benefits the employee, the company, and customers.

Talent Development

When your team isn’t growing, your company isn’t growing. When your company isn’t growing, the gap between you and your competition closes. Investing in developing the talent already on your team will sharpen your competitive edge.

Employee Engagement

A 360° approach to employee development creates positive and meaningful interactions between leadership and employees drives employee engagement. Engaged employees are more loyal, productive, and provide a better customer experience. In short, engaged employees help you stand out from your competition.

Accountability

Accountability means having people do what they say they will do. People have to be accountable to themselves, to their leaders, to their direct reports and to their peers. Leaders cannot tolerate a culture without accountability. It is a morale killer. An employee development system has to incorporate aspects of accountability for it to work. ASC brings metrics for accountability that ensures your success.

This Week’s Challenge

How does your company foster innovation and creativity? Are your employees fully engaged? Or, are they just checking boxes? Do you have a culture to help you succeed?

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

The Importance of Maintaining Curiousity

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maintaining curiousity andrew shaffer consultingThe other day my son asked me a question. “Dad, if you could have one superpower what would it be?” Great question, I mean I could choose anything! What would I choose? What would you choose? My kids will often ask me questions like this. “Dad, what would happen if I …” or the never ending “Why?” They ask these questions because they are curious. They want to learn something they don’t already know. It’s part of their development. For some reason, most adults stop being curious. Is it because we have to admit we don’t have all the answers? I’m not going to get into the psychological aspects here, but I am going to discuss the importance of maintaining curiosity throughout your life.

Importance of Maintaining Curiosity

As the story goes, Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree and was hit on the head with a falling apple. This piqued his curiosity and lead to the discovery of the law of gravity. Apples had been falling off trees since the beginning of time (so I assume I am not that old!), why hadn’t anyone else discovered the law of gravity. No one else was curious. No one else asked, why apples always fell to the ground. Sir Isaac Newton’s curiosity, and pursuit of truth lead him to this discovery.

Curiosity doesn’t have to be limited to the field of physics; it can take your business to the next level. Curiosity breeds innovation, growth and discovery of new and more efficient processes and products. Curiosity helps establish your competitive edge and dominate the market share. Without curiosity you are doomed to complacency until you are obsolete and out of business.

Innovation

Do you want to eliminate complacency in your business? Create an atmosphere of curiosity. I don’t have to tell you that complacency kills your businesses, if not immediately it will over time. You have to be at least as innovative and creative as your competition or risk losing customers. Curiosity drives innovation. Innovation brings new products, better service, and higher profits.

Your employees should always be asking themselves:

  • What happens if I…?
  • Why do we do it this way?
  • Is there a better way?

Answering these questions will spark curiosity and help you become an industry leader.

Leadership

Just the other day I was reading something on the differences between millennials and baby boomers in the work place. I read it because I was curious about the comparisons, and I had a few minutes to kill. You don’t need a PhD in sociology to know that there is a huge difference between the way these generations approach work.

Leaders need to maintain their curiosity. There has been a ton of research done, books and articles written about how to become a more effective leader. In most work places, leadership has evolved from the old command and control model to a more empowering and engaging model. (If you are still in the command and control model, please contact me!). Leaders need to be curious about new ways to improve productivity, engagement, profits, and employee effectiveness.

As the work place changes with new technology, and a new generation of workers, leaders need to evolve as well. Being curious about how to improve your skills will help you become better equipped to stay on the leading edge and maintain your competitive advantage.

Lack of Curiosity

A lack of curiosity will doom you to mediocrity or run you out of business completely. I used to frequently comment that Monday is my favorite day of the week, and Friday was always the worse. Why? Well, because on Monday I was excited about all the things I could do in the coming week, and on Friday I was upset because I didn’t get anything new accomplished. This is classic complacency.

Clearly when I’d get in this rut, it was because I lacked curiosity and imagination to be innovative. When I’d recognize this rut, I knew it was time for a change. Sometimes it was that I needed to find a new job so I could grow, or I had to find a new way to do my job and improve effectiveness. Either way I had seen so many talented people get stuck in the rut, and lacked the curiosity to even wonder if there was a better way. A lack of curiosity will kill businesses, leaders, and careers.

This Week’s Challenge

How curious is your organization? Are you challenging yourself to grow, innovate and dominate your competition? Innovation will help you maximize productivity, reduce turnover, and increase market share. Maintaining curiosity in your business is key to helping your business grow, compete and be the best.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Employee Development and the Bottom Line

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andrew shaffer consulting employee development

I appreciate all the positive feedback from last week’s blog post.  It was supposed to help you think about the message you send, by the words you choose. Last week, I attended an event featuring Gerry Sandusky (voice of the Ravens), and in his talk he also highlighted the fact that people like to win. When trying to attract and retain talent, always keep in mind that people want to be part of a winning team. Develop a winning team, and watch your success skyrocket! Today, I’m talking about how employee development can help your business grow.

Employee Development and the Bottom Line

I grew up in Illinois, and I was a HUGE Chicago Bulls fan. HUGE! When I say a Bulls fan, it was probably more of a Michael Jordan fan. I wanted to be like Mike. Why? Well, because Jordan was the best of his time (and maybe all time). Having Jordan on the court was a game changer, he gave the Bulls a competitive advantage. Need proof? Michael Jordan led the Bulls to a championship in ’91,’92 and ’93, after a brief retirement and an unsuccessful pursuit at a baseball career. He came back to basketball and lead the Bulls to another threepeat in ’96, ’97 and ’98. Fun fact: I was in the United Center in Chicago when the Bulls won in 1998.

Almost everyone I knew wanted to be like Jordan. Jordan was more than a winner; he was a game changer. Every athlete I know dreamed of being the player that was given the shot with the game on the line as the clock is ticking down and comes through with the clutch shot, or play or whatever is necessary to win. Nobody dreams about being the guy that passed Jordan the ball.

Athletes at that level have a tremendous work ethic. However, we all know people with extraordinary work ethics that get ordinary results. Perhaps you have people in our company like this. Perhaps your company is like this. To achieve greatness, you need to combine that work ethic with a useful employee development tool. You may not have a championship trophy to show for it, but you will see the impact on your bottom line as you leave your competition behind.

Retention

I have talked with team leaders, and executives that have lost a top performer from their team. The story is almost always the same. I didn’t see it coming, and I wish I’d have known so I could have done something. These leaders struggle, often in vein, to find a direct replacement. In fact, most of the time they end up needing two people to get the same productivity.

Even if you didn’t have to hire multiple people, the replacement costs can exceed 1.5 times the salary of the person that left. Not to mention the impact to morale and team cohesion. And now your best employee, the one that gave you a competitive advantage, might be giving your competition that advantage you just lost. Wow!

Retention has an indirect, but real impact on your bottom line. Let’s keep this in perspective. As your company grows you run the risk of higher attrition numbers. Now not all attrition can be avoided, but if you could reduce turnover by 3-5%, how much money could you put back into your business. Where would you rather invest your hard-earned capital?

Productivity

Having an employee development system will improve the productivity of your team. We’ve all heard the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the work is done by 20% of the employees. There is a natural tendency in business where teams typically have about 20% that are exceptional. Roughly another 60% that are solid performers, and the remaining employees just don’t fit. What if you could tap into the underutilized productivity in the 60% of your solid performers and improve productivity by just a few percent. What you’ll see is dramatic increases in productivity.

For illustration purposes. Suppose you had about 50 employees in your organization. Increasing productivity by just 3% will yield an additional 3000 hours of work over the course of a year. That is like having another 1.5 people on your staff without all the overhead of having employees. And an additional 3% isn’t really all that much. It comes out to ~15 minutes a day/employee. Think of it this way: 5 minutes first thing in the morning, 5 minutes after lunch, and 5 minutes at the end of the day. How does this happen? Just being more deliberate, and focused.

Employee Development System

An employee development system is not an annual performance assessment. It is not long drawn out conversations about why someone needs to improve. I have 2 boys that play sports. I do my best to coach them both. When a player strikes out, as he’s walking back to the dug-out I often give him a quick piece of advice. Adjust your hands so you can get the bat around, or shift your balance so you can get a more level swing. Something quick and immediate. I didn’t wait until the end of the season (like an annual review). We try to make corrections now so we can see improvements at his next at bat.

To continue with the coaching analogy, there is one coach, one piece of advice, and one conversation. I don’t overload the ball player with three for four pieces of advice. It’ll clutter his head, and he’ll certainly fail again next time. We don’t have every coach giving advice at the same time (I do see this at times). Again, keep it simple, direct and understandable. Normally the change doesn’t come immediate in a game, and that is OK. But at our next practice I remind the player what we needed to work on, then we practice it until we get it right.

As a coach I develop my players on a game by game, day by day system. I work to elevate performance, so at the end of the season we are better ball players. Hopefully at the end of each practice we are a little better. When creating an employee development system, these same fundamentals apply. A quick, simple, timely  process for feedback, with the intent of elevating talent, will improve productivity, lower retention, and drive profits that you will see in your financial statements.

This Week’s Challenge

Do you have an employee development system in place that is designed for continuous improvement? Do you have a system in place that elevates the talent on your team on a continuous basis? Are you creating a system that gives you a competitive edge?

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.