Maximizing the Human Potential

Employee Engagement in Times of Change

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employee engagement in times of change andrew shaffer consultingThis pandemic has changed the way we do business now and in the future. We’ve learned new terms like social distancing, and many of us are spending more time with our families than we ever had in the past. It certainly is unprecedented times. I want you to know that I am here to help you in any way that I can during these times of change.

If you are looking for help, be sure to check out the Thrive Performance Group Webinars and discussions we are hosting on a weekly basis. Information can be found here: https://thriveperformancegroup.com/. In the meantime, don’t panic. Stay safe, stay well, and we’ll get through this.

This month I am going to talk about Employee Engagement in Times of Change. Why? Because your employees are probably scared, concerned, and maybe overwhelmed. Now is the time to show your support for your employees and strengthen the loyalty they have for you.

Employee Engagement in Times of Change

I appreciate you taking time to read this today. This blog is going to be short and to the point. One of the biggest challenges your teams are going to face is how to stay engaged and motivated in the middle of all this uncertainty. You need your employees to stay engaged, motivated and most of all productive as you navigate your way through an ever-changing economic landscape.

As your employees are transitioning to a remote workplace, you must remember that your employees will have to adapt to a completely new work environment. It’s not as easy as logging in from home. Habits change, communication among colleagues change, stimulus changes, and there are more distractions.

In addition to getting work done, your employees are probably dealing with kids being home from school and concerned the health and safety of their family and friends. On top of that, they may be worried about their job security and even if they will be paid.

These are heavy concerns.

Relationships

The key to keeping employees engaged and motivated with all these concerns, uncertainty, and looming changes is to establish deep trust and respect. Hopefully you’ve already been doing this prior to the pandemic. It is extremely important now that you continue to build the relationship, and even strengthen it if you can.

Trust and Respect is all about RELATIONSHIPS. While your employees are working remotely it is important that you and your leadership team speak to your direct reports on a regular basis, daily if possible. When speaking to your teams, try to show GENUINE compassion and understanding for their concerns. Here are some tips:

  • Listen to your employees and to their fears and concerns.
  • Appreciate their perspective
  • Offer help and advice where you can.

This might take some time on your part, but it goes a long way to building and maintaining trust and respect.

Sharing News

Communicate and communicate often. Everyday on the news there seems to be more bad news and uncertainty. Just watching the stock market shows that there is not only uncertainty, but a lot of volatility. Companies are closing and unemployment is on the rise. Your teams know this and probably worry about it. Now is when it is important to share news, even if it’s changing. The absence of a message from you will cause your teams to assume the worse. Communicate often and follow these principles:

  • Share what you KNOW
  • Share what you DON’T KNOW
  • Share what you THINK
  • Don’t confuse them

Virtual Communication

Virtual communication offers unique challenges. Mostly because the non-verbal cues are almost nonexistent. Email, text, and instant messages all leave interpretation to the reader. The best advice I can offer here is:

  • Be concise
  • Be precise
  • Drive Action

 This Week’s Challenge

You have enough challenges right now; you don’t need another from me. I encourage you to check out the Thrive Performance Group and join the discussions Tuesday afternoons.

As always, if you need help, please contact us to learn how we can help!

Changing Management

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andrew shaffer consulting flexibility and controlDid you enjoy the game yesterday? Last week I talked about Flexibility and Control. As I was watching the Superbowl yesterday, I realize we were witnessing the balance of flexibility and control firsthand. For each play, the quarterback has a few plays he’ll call in the huddle. This is the control. When he gets to the line, he surveys the defense, and then has the flexibility to call an audible (change the play) based on the conditions he sees. Additionally, coaches start the game with a specific game plan, but will often adjust based on what is working and what isn’t. The next thing you’ll see in the NFL is a bunch of coaching changes as some coaches are fired, others promoted. This week’s blog discusses changing management and what that means in your company.

Changing Management

I once worked with a group of mid-level professionals that were frustrated with what they perceived as rotating management. Every few years, they would have new managers and they felt the inconsistencies was hurting their career. I mean, I get it. Just when they thought they knew what was expected someone else comes in with new ideas, new direction, and a new focus. This is challenging. They wanted to know why managers in their company rotated every two to three years, and why is this a good thing (or is it)?

Different Skills

In my above example, as that company was evolving and maturing, there were different needs. Even if you take a long-term project, there are different skills needed when planning, executing, and closing out a project. One person might not be good at all three phases, therefore different people are needed to ensure continuing success.

As a company progresses, there are different leadership skills needed along the way. For example, when a company is in its infancy, leadership must be quick and responsive. Your processes and procedures (if you even have them) are not optimized. Everyone on your team probably wears several hats, from sales to manufacturing, to maybe even financing and cleaning the shop. When the company matures, and you start hiring more. Then with more people you have to set job descriptions, procedures and processes to maintain consistency and predictability.

Career Progression

Rotating management also helps with career progression. I once worked with a manager that had basically been doing the same job for about fifteen years. He was probably about fifteen years from retirement, so my projection is he was going to keep doing the same thing for the next fifteen years. Eventually he’d see his colleagues move up the ranks, become peers, and eventually get promoted up the ladder. Why?

Well, he found himself in a niche, something where he provided value, and where he was comfortable and secure. He never took on new challenges (just variations of the same challenge) and didn’t develop new skills. He had a very narrow focus and struggled to see the “big picture”. As a result, there was no career progression, no advancement, and he wasn’t providing greater value to the company. His pay eventually maxed out, and he was destined to spend most of his career doing the same job. Job rotations are essential to updating, honing and developing new skills and perspective to grow in your own career.

Fresh Perspective

One of the big reasons for rotating management (or hiring a consultant) is to get a fresh perspective on existing problems. Often, leaders get so stuck in their paradigms they just can’t see how to get out of their own way. One of my favorite assignments was taking over a department that was struggling to find the success they had seen for decades. I brought with me a different paradigm, new ideas and was able to help them start to regain the success they were accustomed to having.

Rotating management, or bringing in new management, who isn’t immersed in your culture, will bring in a different perspective on your problems. Often there could be a natural resistance to that change, but when you can overcome that resistance progress happens.

This Week’s Challenge

How does your company make sure your leadership has the skills for where your company is, and where it is going? If you need help identifying what skills are needed, please contact us to learn how we can help!

Flexibility and Control

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andrew shaffer consulting flexibility and controlIn almost every job I’ve ever had or project I’ve ever undertaken there always something that didn’t go as planned. We spend hundreds of man hours coming up with a plan, trying to think of every thing that has to happen along the way. We brainstorm risks and put together mitigation plans to minimize the chances or impact if it happens. As they say, a battle plan is only good until it sees battle. In order to be successful, you should have the right mix of flexibility and control within your company. Today’s discussion will help you understand some of the natural conflicts between flexibility and control in your business and why they are necessary.

Flexibility and Control

You probably wish you could control everything in your organization. I mean why not? The more control you have over processes and procedures the more predictable your results, right? I have worked with numerous companies that are very proud of their processes, and display banners with different process certifications. They brag about it on their websites and capability statements.

Processes give you confidence in repeatable and predictable results. Here is the thing, your process also can provide repeatable and predictable mistakes. I have seen this, and the response is always the same: “But, I followed the process.” So, the solution is to add a new process.  Sooner or later, there is only process and no flexibility. Like Henry Ford said about the Model T, “you can have it in any color you want, as long as it’s black.” All control and no flexibility. Let’s look at some ways this occurs in your company.

Veteran vs. New Hire

How many times has a company, maybe even yours, hired someone from the outside to bring in a fresh perspective? This person comes in, with a bunch of ideas from his/her previous experience. After six months to a year, all those fresh perspectives are gone, and the person you hired to change things has fallen into the trap of “this is how it’s done here.”

I have worked with several companies, especially small to mid-size companies, where there is a distinct dichotomy in their employee base. Often you have an employee base that started with the company and has been there since the beginning. However, as they reach retirement age, new employees must be hired to fill the jobs. This isn’t always a generational thing, but it can be. You many have veterans at your company that have been there fifteen to twenty years, and another group maybe three to five years.

The veterans in your company typically lean to the control side of the spectrum. They have their ways of doing things, they follow their process and they get predictable results. That is why you have them working for you. However, when you bring in new people, they are generally lean more towards the flexible side of the spectrum. They are flexible because they don’t know your culture, your company habits, and they aren’t as set in their ways. They begin to question everything, and maybe even offer alternatives.

Solution

The fresh perspective that your new employees bring can help you add flexibility into your business. This does NOT mean that you change everything you have been doing. There has to be a balance. Your veteran employees helped you become the success you are right now. They understand the processes, and know how to get results.

I have been the new guy in this scenario. I worked with a team of veterans that had their process down pat. The trouble was, because they kept doing what they knew, they kept perpetuating the same mistakes. At first when I offered suggestions, I was dismissed because I was new and didn’t know enough about what they did. After all, they had decades of experience and I didn’t. Which is another way of saying they didn’t trust me. It wasn’t personal. They just didn’t trust that I had the background to make suggestions.

My solution, as the new guy was to understand the process, what they were doing, and why. I found that they had evolved (or devolved if you will) over the years cutting process to cut costs. Taking the time to understand their process and their history, added credibility to my suggestions. I was able to build trust because I wasn’t just telling them all the things they were doing wrong. As a result, I was able to offer a few suggestions to improve the process, without a complete overhaul, and the typical mistakes they had been experiencing became a thing of the past.

This Week’s Challenge

Do you have the right balance of flexibility and control? Do you have a culture that allows for new ideas from outsiders? If you need help creating this balance or culture, please contact us to learn how we can help!

Employee All-Stars

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andrew shaffer consulting employee all-starsHappy Veterans day to all veterans.  Thank you for your service. Last week I had the opportunity to speak at a lunch sponsored by What’s Up Media and the Crofton Chamber of Commerce. I talked about elevating performance and how building a team of high performers can help your company beat 80% of the competition. The challenge for many small businesses is that they often can’t pay the highest salaries or provide the best benefits.  So how do you attract and retain employees that give you a competitive advantage?

Employee All-Stars

When it comes to working with employees, business leaders KNOW that about 20% of their team takes most of their time. Typically, what happens is the highest performers get ignored. Why? Well, because are doing a good job, and really don’t require much attention. They work hard, get the job done and are always dependable. Karie Willyerd points out in her article “What High Performers Want at Work”, that “A high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than the average performer”. (Karie Willyerd – NOVEMBER 18, 2014).  So, the questions aren’t about being able to afford your All-Stars, but can you afford to lose your All-Stars?

Provide a challenge

All-Stars don’t become all-stars on accident. They challenge themselves to improve, and do things better, faster, and cheaper than others. They enjoy the challenge of performing at a high level. Without that challenge, high performers will get bored, and look to fill that need elsewhere (like your competition). There are always new challenges and problems you are facing as a business owner. Ask your All-Stars to help you find new and challenging problems to solve. Include them on strategic initiatives, new projects, or process improvements. Your business will be able to separate from the competition, and your star employees will remain challenged and engaged.

Create a game

Creating games in your business is always fun. It brings out the competitive nature in people, and boosts morale (if the game is fair). I’m not talking about going bowling or having a bocce tournament in the lawn at work. I am talking about a game that affects business outcomes.

Ideas would be to challenge each shift in a manufacturing facility to see who can produce more on a single shift or have the fewest quality defects. You could challenge salespeople to see who can land the biggest contract. Create a game that promotes desired business outcomes, make it challenging and achievable, and again you’ll see morale improve. Not only will your all-stars benefit, but you may create some more all-star employees!

Performance based pay

As I stated earlier that “A high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than the average performer”. If you truly have a high performer, and they are that productive, you will get a competitive advantage.  Share in some of the reward with the employee.  Pay could be based on commission, based on overall company performance, or even equity. This gives the employee a feeling that he/she had skin in the game. They are recognized and rewarded for their hard work and incentivized to continue to improve. This is another win-win for you and the employee.

This Week’s Challenge

Don’t forget your employee All-Stars. If you take them for granted, your competition may not. Find ways to incentivize and recognize your all-stars to make sure they continue to give you the competitive advantage you need!

If you need help, or would like to learn more about how to retain your top performers,  please reach out to me. I’ll be happy to help!

Finding and Keeping the Best Employees

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best employees andrew shaffer consultingOne challenge many business leaders are sharing with me is a frustration with finding and keeping high performing employees. Some companies are struggling with retention, others with finding qualified candidates, and still others are dealing with a lack of productivity or innovation. No matter what the issues is, business leaders are always looking ways to help their employees improve. Today I am going to talk about how to help you attract, retain, develop your employees to give you a competitive edge.

Finding and Keeping the Best Employees

Business leaders spend countless hours developing and executing strategies. Much of that strategy is centered around two things, developing new business and executing on existing business.

In a recent client meeting I asked the management team some simple questions about who their customers were. They nailed it! They knew exactly who their customers were, what they wanted and how they provide that. Companies often come up with an “avatar” or ideal client so they can market to them.  But how many people do the same thing for the employees they want to attract? Here are some basic questions you should be asking about your current employees as well as those you hire in the future.

Who are your employees?

Just like companies identify who their target market is for their customers, business leaders should have a target market for their employees. If you look through any job search site, most (not all) employers describe who they are looking for by a set of skills and experience. Skills and experience don’t mean that someone will be effective in your company.

Look at your current employees. List some of the characteristics of your top performers. Those that have been there a while, what do they all have in common? You might even want to do the same exercise with those that haven’t worked out. What went wrong there?

What do they need?

This is something that is often overlooked or minimized. I mean they need a paycheck, right? I’ll tell you with 100% certainty, if that is the only need you are filling, you will have a hard time keeping employees. No matter how big that paycheck is, there is always someone willing to write a bigger check.

Everyone has different needs, and each generation has different needs as well.  Baby boomers needed job security. Millennials need flexible work arrangements. Employees at non-profits and charity organizations feel the need to serve (and usually don’t get paid well). When I work with companies I typically use an assessment to determine the employee needs, and how well those needs are being filled. This is almost always eye-opening for leadership!

How is the need satisfied?

Knowing is half the battle, so understanding the need is only the beginning of the solution. How do you fill that need? Learning opportunities is one of the common motivators, and motivational gaps, I find in my assessment. Employees are interested in professional development and expect the company to support that in some way.

It won’t be uncommon for business leaders to provide a laundry list of things they offer with respect to learning opportunities.  What they often don’t realize is their employees find the process to take advantage might be too cumbersome (needs too much approval), or they don’t feel like they are able to balance learning with their current workload. After you determine what need you serve for your employee, do you have a way to satisfy that need, that the employees are taking advantage of?

When do you satisfy the need?

Flexible work hours are becoming common place in todays workforce. From flexible hours to work from home options.  But not all businesses can accommodate these types of arrangements. And even those businesses that can, it isn’t feasible to do it all the time.  If you are a tax accountant, chances are you will have very little flexibility during “tax season”.

Every business cycle is different, and every need is different. As a leader you must determine the best way to satisfy employee needs without compromising business needs. What is ultra-important here, is to effectively communicate expectations, and when you will be able to satisfy certain needs.

Who provides that need?

Once you learn who your employees are, what their needs are, how and when it will be provided, someone must be responsible for providing it. Who will fill those needs? Often it is a combination of leadership, employees, and maybe HR. So, as a complete picture it is important to decide who is responsible for providing what.

For example: the need is career advancement. HR would be responsible for determining pay and promotion criteria. Leadership would be responsible for giving guidance and assignments to meet those criteria, and the employee is responsible for execute.

This Week’s Challenge

Take action to decide who your employees are and what they need. You will soon find that you will have higher productivity and retention (yes even with millennials)! If you need help, or would like to learn more about our assessments,  please reach out to me. I’ll be happy to help!

Dealing with Change

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andrew shaffer consulting dealing with changeBy now the kids are back in school.  This has an impact in my family.  We have new morning routines. As the kids are starting in their schools, they are meeting new classmates and teachers.  Although it is familiar, it is different. It is a change, and for anyone that has or has had kids, they know that there is an adjustment period.  Even if you don’t have kids, you will notice that there are new traffic patterns as parents with kids are adjusting their schedules and commutes around bus schedules and school drop offs. There is no avoiding it, change happens, and we have to adjust. Today’s post is all about dealing with change.

Dealing with Change

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy. What matters is how quickly the leader is able to adapt.”

– Tim Harford

Every business is constantly dealing with change. Change ranges from problems encountered in new product development, responding to the competition, or it could be a radical shift in your business model. When you think about it, your business has to be in a constant state of change (or evolution) otherwise you’ll soon find yourself obsolete. Competitive landscapes and consumer needs all change and your business needs to change to keep up with a changing landscape. Successful leaders, and businesses become quite effective in dealing with these changes and evolutions. Here are some common characteristics of change, and how to navigate them successfully.

Conflict

When there is change, there is almost always conflict. Conflict can be constructive or destructive. What is the difference?

Destructive conflict is just that, destructive. If allowed destructive conflict will kill careers and if destructive conflict has become part of the culture, it will kill your company. Destructive conflict looks a lot like finger pointing, passing blame, and avoiding blame. It is not a pretty road, and nobody wins in the end, well maybe a consultant when you finally hire one to help save your company.

Constructive conflict is very helpful. I learned early in my management career to welcome constructive conflict. I had one engineer on my team that would “argue” with me about almost everything.  It wasn’t a hostile argument, but he challenged almost every decision I would make. I would ask him to come to my office whenever I was trying to work out any challenging issue. And together, through his challenging questions, and my responses almost always came up with a stronger solution than either one of us would have on our own. Through this “conflict” we were able to improve the productivity of our team by up to 50% in some areas.

Communication

The key success when dealing with change in conflict is communication. I don’t know how many times a company was going through changes (restructure, mergers, buy out etc.) and there is absolutely no communication, or worse poor communication!  No communication and poor communication just lead to rumors and assumptions on the part of your employees.  I can tell you firsthand, that the rumors and assumptions are almost ALWAYS worse than reality. It causes fear and distrust among the employees and leads to destructive conflict, even when it isn’t necessary.

Trust and Respect

I had the unfortunate position of being in a job where we lost a significant amount of our workload. Suddenly I was faced with having not enough work for the number of people I had on my team. Uncertainty was everywhere, and there was the constant threat of layoffs.  People came to work everyday not knowing if it would be there last day. Ironically, during this same time, my team’s morale actually improved. How? I was constantly communicating, openly and honestly with my team. And, prior to that I had a developed a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

To ensure you have effective communication there has to be a level of mutual trust and respect. When you think about this, your best relationships with a spouse, best friend, children, whomever is based on mutual trust and respect. When that trust is broken what happens to the relationship? It deteriorates and eventually disintegrates.  Why would companies treat their employees any different? Companies often demand or expect loyalty from their employees on one hand, and then hide information or poorly communicate company strategies on the other. The rationale for this is because “we don’t want people to panic.”

This Week’s Challenge

How is your company culture structured? Are there silos and finger pointing, or communication based on mutual trust and respect? Are all stakeholders brought in for decisions or are people just told to live with decisions being made?  Creating the right culture, and integrated culture, will dramatically improve your bottom line!

Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

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.

Corporate Silos

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Seandrew shaffer consulting corporate silosOver the last few weeks I have had several individuals express frustration about how their business was siloed or stove piped.  This basically means that everyone works within their specific function and ignores everyone else. In fact, in one specific case, it had an employee considering leaving the company. Well integrated, high performing teams and companies cannot operate with this model. Today I am going to talk about the dangers of corporate silos to your business and offer a suggestion for a solution.

Corporate Silos

A few weeks back I talked about Team Integration.  In that post, I discussed the importance of teams working towards a common goal.  I feel this is important to keep everyone focused on the results, and helps people work together better. However, even when everyone in the company and the team is working toward a common goal there can still be corporate silos.  This is evident with statements like:

  • Don’t tell me how to do my job!
  • What do you know about …
  • Stay in your lane!

These are not a sign of a well-integrated, high performing team.

Communication

Companies operating in silos inevitably do not communicate well.  Marketing isn’t communicating with sales. Design working independent of manufacturing. Accounting isn’t communicating with anyone. When communication breaks down, there is a lack of mutual trust and respect. Poor communication will cost your business money.

I have seen where a lack of communication has caused projects to overrun budgets by up to 200% or more. On a project I was working on, one engineer worked strictly in his own silo.  He’d communicate weekly about what he accomplished. But the other engineers, who were using this design, would regularly find things that didn’t work.  Why? Because they didn’t communicate effectively up front so that everyone understood the path forward. They all went about their tasks, and when the two were integrated, it didn’t work and there was a ton of expensive re-work.

Complexity

Siloed companies are plagued with complexity. Why? Because they must add processes and procedures to everything to compensate for a lack of communication.  Does this sound familiar? In these types of organizations, when something goes wrong like supply chain didn’t order the right parts slowing down manufacturing. Suddenly there is a new process for ordering parts requiring four or five signatures inevitably from people too busy and layers away from the actual work. Time is added to the process, and there are more questions which mean a longer process.  Eliminate this with effective communication.

To add to the complexity, managers and leaders will start protecting themselves so they aren’t blamed for the delays. Infighting backstabbing and more bureaucracy can also enter in the picture.

Solution

Change your decision-making process. Include more communication. Develop decision making teams, at the appropriate level, that include a cross function of support. Any and all stakeholders should be included, and if they are not the meeting should be put on hold. Work all scenarios up front. Set expectations and make plans. Many times, especially on time sensitive projects, people just dive in and get started. While initiative is something that is admirable, jumping in without proper preparation is a formula for rework, exceeding budgets and missing deadlines.  Create a culture where people work together, communicate with mutual trust and respect.

This Week’s Challenge

How is your company culture structured? Are there corporate silos and finger pointing, or communication based on mutual trust and respect? Are all stakeholders brought in for decisions or are people just told to live with decisions being made?  Creating the right culture, and integrated culture, will dramatically improve your bottom line!

Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

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.

Team Building Ideas and Misconceptions

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team buliding andrew shaffer consultingDuring a conversation over coffee with my friend Steve Morris, founder of Catylator, we had an interesting discussion on some common techniques for team building and why they fall short of the goal. One thing we both agreed on was that some techniques for team building, while fun, don’t actually achieve any objectives of team building. Steve has a unique, interesting and effective method for team building and problem solving. If you think you could use his help or want to learn more, I encourage you to check out his website. This week I am going to share some ideas and misconceptions of team building.

Team Building

Most of us agree that working on a cohesive team improves productivity, engagement, and business outcomes. The terms “team” and “teamwork” are ramped in job descriptions and prospects inevitably boast about being team player or team leader. Many organizations I know will attempt team building through some social activity as a way to get to know each other outside of work. They might invite teams to a happy hour, lunch outing, or bowling. Is this the best way to build a team?

While these activities are fun, and can help build friendships, they don’t always build teams. I mean think about it, how is bowling or a beer going to help you be more productive at work? Personally, I prefer to have a beer or go bowling (actually golfing) AFTER I’ve established a relationship with someone.

Common Purpose

For a team to be highly functioning, they have to have a common purpose. Sports is the best and simplest example of this. The common purpose of any sports team, at least the good ones, is to win a game or championship. That’s it. Everyone in the organization from the owner, to the GM to the rookie that just signed this morning, all have the same goal. To win games.

In the business world, the common purpose could be a project completion, customer satisfaction score, or sales goals. The best teams I’ve ever worked with was when we were ALL focused on the same goal. The team was diligently working to complete a task. The team leaders were actively removing obstacles that impeded progress. Everyone knew what success looked like, everyone was keeping score, and everyone participated in achieving results. I’m actually getting excited just remembering these successes!

Belonging

Being part of a team, is more than just having a role to fill. Being part of a team was a sense of belonging. I’ve been coaching little league baseball for several years now. One of the most exciting days for the boys are when I hand out the uniforms. Actually, from the first day of practice I generally have someone asking when we’ll be getting uniforms. Why? Because when we all have our uniforms on, we feel like we’re part of something. I make sure the coaching staff is always dressed like part of the team as well. Again, we ALL belong and it makes a difference.

When someone belongs to something, they recognize they are part of something bigger. Being part of something bigger tends to help us be less concerned about “me” as we are about “we”. When we’re concerned about “we” then we can help each other and the team improve.

Trust

Trust is a foundational aspect of any team. I need to trust that the other members of my team will be there when I need them. Going to back to my hobby of coaching little league. Sometimes my pitchers get focused on getting a strike out, and will get frustrated when players get a hit. When this happens, I’ll remind them that it’s OK, and there are 8 other players on the field that are there to make a play. Actually, the other players are hoping the batter hits the ball so they have something to do!

Trust is essential to everything in business and in life. My kids trust that someone will pick them up from school each day. My wife and I trust each other to uphold our responsibilities in the family. I trust my employees to do the jobs they say they are going to do. When the trust breaks down, the team breaks down and sooner or later you stop winning. Once trust is broken it is very hard to repair.

This Week’s Challenge

I want you to think about what you do to build a team at your company. Does it help you work towards a common goal? Does it foster a sense of belonging? And, does it help build trust?

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.

Continuous Improvement

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continuous improvement andrew shaffer consultingBecause it is Spring, and most of my “free time” is spent with my boys and their various sports, I find myself finding many lessons in watching them play. Just last week, I was coaching my eldest’s baseball team and we just decisively won the previous two games. I was watching the boys play, and I had been coaching a some of them for a few seasons, and have observed others as they played on other teams. I commented to my wife, how fun it was to be able to watch these kids grow over the last four or five years.

As coaches we are continuously trying to improve the performance of our players, through coaching, instructing, and sometimes even motivating. All this with the purpose of changing behavior. The irony here is in the business world, we don’t often use the same approach. Today, I will talk about continuous improvement in the work place, and ways to be more successful as you make necessary changes to be a winner today and in the future.

Continuous Improvement

At every company I have ever worked for, there was always a push for continuous improvement. Companies spent time and money looking for process improvements or new software that could streamline a process. How do we do it faster, cheaper, better? Great question! Who doesn’t want to do more with less?

The trouble with new processes or software is they don’t always improve efficiency. They don’t take into account the people actually needed to make the change. People are creatures of habit. To understand this, we need to understand what a habit is. A habit is an automatic response to a trigger, which is anything that causes us to take action. Let’s explore how improvements are often implemented in companies.

Changing the Response… The Hard Way

Companies spend a lot of money working on infrastructure updates, new tools, systems and processes, in order to achieve more efficiency. Then when a new system is in place, they spend even MORE money training employees to learn the new system. Then, after all this money is spent, they don’t see the efficiencies they had hoped to see! WHY!?!

In the work place we are still humans, and still creatures of habit. We receive an email (trigger), we respond (response). And on it goes. When there is a change to a process, or a new piece of software is added to the mix, people are being asked to respond differently to the same trigger. This creates confusion and disrupts their habits. It makes people uncomfortable. It is essentially the same as setting your alarm clock when it is time to go to sleep! You wouldn’t expect someone to have a completely different reaction to the sound of an alarm clock! Why expect them to change responses to the same trigger in the work place?

People will naturally resist this kind of change, complain about the new software or process.  It may take longer to accept the change, or people may go back to doing it the old way.   That is more comfortable, and after all, it’s worked for so long already!

But Process Improvements are Necessary

I know what you are thinking, process improvements are necessary. The new software is needed because the old stuff isn’t sustainable anymore. How do I get people to adopt to new processes?

Changing the Trigger… The Better Way

Just like any change in habit, change the trigger. At one point in a former career, I was being reassigned.  It was requested that I train my replacement during a transition period. The reasoning behind this was that I could smoothly transition my tasks to my replacement. This caused some issues with the team, and the confusion slowed the transition.

As long as I was there, the team would look to me for answers and direction. This was what they had done since the project started. The team looked to me to run the staff meetings and a whole host of things I normally did. In this case, my presence was the trigger. They came to me with status and problems as the response. It wasn’t until I removed the trigger (stopped attending meetings) that the team started relying on my replacement and made the transition.

Accept that Failure is Possible

Process improvements can’t be about changing responses. That is ineffective and it just doesn’t work. If you really want to maximize the benefits of improved systems and processes the key is to identify and change the triggers. Replace an existing trigger with a new trigger, and then you’ll get people to have a different response without the struggle of changing habits.

This Week’s Challenge

Find one area where you know you can be more efficient. Identify the trigger to change the response, and see your efficiency improve! This type of continuous improvement is essential to your business success.

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.

Continuous Improvement

 

Use Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge

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Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge andrew shaffer consultingI had the privilege of sitting down with my friend Ben from Global Harvest Networks to share ideas on how to help companies grow. When I first met Ben, his story of growth in his company inspired me, and he hasn’t stopped growing. When Ben and I were talking, he shared that he is always amazed at how his team is willing to step up and take on new challenges. His company has developed a culture that gives him a competitive edge. In light of this conversation I thought I’d share with you how you can use culture to gain a competitive edge!

Use Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge

There are two things I know about your business. First, if you are not making money, you are going to go out of business. Second, your business cannot operate without people. Businesses either grow or die.

According to aei.org: only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still a Fortune 500 company in 2015. It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, or how your proprietary information gives you an edge. Without people to sell, develop, and produce the product or provide the service, nothing will get done.

The other little secret, your product or service can be the absolute best today, but if you don’t continuously improve, you’ll soon be left behind. Need proof? Remember the Motorola Razor phone? What happened to Motorola? When I was a kid, everyone in the neighborhood had an Atari 2600 game console. Atari isn’t even in business anymore. Not to mention the number of airlines, car companies, and electronics companies that no longer exist.

Last month we discussed the importance of developing proactive leadership. To take this discussion to the next level, your leaders should be creating a culture that gives you a competitive edge!

Challenge the Status Quo

When you find something that works stick with it. Right? I mean that sounds like good advice. My dad used to tell me, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This advice was probably sound, when my dad saw me taking a screw driver to the VCR because I wanted to “see how it works” but this mentality can be detrimental to a business.

I have met business owners that have done a decent job of building themselves a profitable business. However, after several years, they find they can’t increase revenue or market share, and sometimes they are even losing revenue. They call in consultants (like me), and when I suggest making changes to the business model, I get immediate resistance. They built their business doing it a certain way and come hell or high water, that is the way it will be done. In the meantime, their competitors have found a way to solve the same problem cheaper, faster and smarter. Who is going to stay in business longer? Create a culture that is as proactive as your leaders.

Develop Friendly Competition

Anther struggle I see in businesses is a culture of cut-throat competition. I mean that culture where everyone is out for themselves and not for the company? Friendly competition is fine, fun, and productive. It is when the competition is mean, undermining, and counterproductive that it becomes toxic to a company.

Let’s use a manufacturing company as an example. This company runs three shifts a day to produce their product. Management decides to help motivate the production floor, that they’ll have a competition over the next month to see how may products each shift can make. In a culture of friendly competition, each shift would work hard and try to produce the greatest number of products. They would get creative to find more efficient and effective ways. Ideally, each subsequent shift will do this. Each team wins, because they learn how to be more effective and efficient. One team may win a prize (or bragging rights), and the company benefits from improved productivity and profitability.

Now, if you have a cut-throat type culture, the results will be extremely different. Here you may have one shift trying to sabotage the next shift. They could damage or “lose” material. They certainly wouldn’t be creative and find innovative ways to be more productive. In this type environment each shift would be out for themselves, and may even hinder production on the other shifts if they thought it would give them an edge.

This Week’s Challenge

This week I have given a couple examples how a culture can help your business gain a competitive edge. By developing a culture that challenges the status quo. What are you doing well today, and how can you make that better? Develop opportunities for friendly competition. This can be in sales, marketing, manufacturing, wherever. Create a culture that encourages innovative and creative thinking, and watch your competitive edge sharpen!

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.