Guidelines for a Turnaround

When you take over a company that needs a Turnaround or you are with a company and it is consciously decided to do a Turnaround there are some basic principles you want to keep in mind.

First, meet with your front line managers and emphasize two rules for managers …

1. Get your job done every day on time. Every day … on time.
2. Work together with the other managers.

Commitment to these two rules will do wonders for everyone … the managers as a team … the examples set for all workers … the results for the company.

Second, make sure that when the team wins, everyone wins. Being part of the company … of a team … working together … collaborating together … is what will make you a winner. It takes everyone!

Third, be transparent with your employees … tell employees what’s going on, fully and honestly. It is hard for an employee to do the right thing or suggest a needed improvement if they don’t know what’s going on. Communication is important … communication is a two-way street. You will learn more from the employees than they will learn from you.

Fourth, always remember that customers want dependability and predictability. Your customers want to work with someone who is dependable and reliable. By being predictable, your customers know what to expect and that you are dependable. So simple, but so valuable. It works.

Fifth, remember that almost everybody loves predictability. Customers love you when they know they can count on you … that you are predictable. Think about it … again, it works.

Sixth, remember … if you’re the top guy, then every problem is your problem. So be engaged, involved and in attendance every day. Know what’s going on, why, how, and make sure things work like they’re suppose to based on your position, your experience, and because you know that is what will make the company successful.

Finally … it’s a lot harder to keep things going great than to get them going great in the first place. Staying focused and maintaining a continuous improvement program as the company grows and improves requires constant attention and commitment. To be successful you have to be the leader in making the constant minor adjustments necessary as things change and improve with the market.

I hope these ideas are helpful and make you think of ways you can apply them to your business.

Good Luck and Keep Improving!

What are your ideas for addressing a Turnaround situation?

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

Ever Been Admonished

I recently heard the word “admonish” used in a presentation that caught my attention.

Have you ever been admonished? Have you ever admonished anyone? I must admit that when I think of admonishing someone, it sounds uncomfortable to me. One person told me it makes them think of a tongue lashing … or as a friend put it, “a verbal scouring pad.” But then when you look up the meaning of ADMONISH, this is how it is defined:

• To indicate duties or obligations to
• To express warning or disapproval in an especially gentle and earnest manner
• To give friendly earnest advice or encouragement to
• To caution, advise, or counsel against something
• To reprove or scold, especially in a mild and good-willed manner
• To urge to a duty; remind
• To reprove mildly
• To reprove gently but earnestly
• To counsel another about something to be avoided
• To remind of something forgotten or disregarded

Considerate and Compassionate

Now none of that seems harsh or rude to me … actually sounds considerate and compassionate. Which makes me think of the tones we hear every day in today’s world of hyper media coverage, paparazzi, television shows, loud advertisements, radio talk shows, political differences and such where we are subjected to and reminded of the many harsh and oftentimes cruel statements that surround us. Maybe we should consider adding a sense of “admonishing” to our efforts to correct, critique, or criticize others “in an especially gentle or earnest manner” to gain back a degree of civility in our everyday lives. After all, we’re all in this historical global economic crisis together. How might we each add politeness and good manners in our everyday lives that lead others to do the same?

Just sayin …

What are your thoughts on ADMONISH?

 How do you think we could move toward a more courteous society during these difficult times?

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

How to Build a Management Team – Part 7 of a 7-Part Series

Recap of First Six

This is the seventh and last of a 7 part series on How to Build a Management Team. Here’s a recap of the key issues of what we have covered in the first six blogs:

1. Senior Sales Executive – You need to determine your sales goals long-term. If your goal is to bring in large accounts, you need to go with a connected results oriented closer. If your plan is to grow through adding a sales team over time as sales grow, then you need to look for someone with actual sales experience but also a knack for working with people and building teams with a vision in mind.

2. Chief Financial Officer – How do you go about finding an excellent CFO? Use a quality CPA firm as a backup or help to your initial bookkeeper and then attempt to hire away one of the CPA firm’s employees whom you have observed and feel will be a good fit for your company. Or you may choose to go the traditional route of referrals or a retained recruiter with experience finding CFO type executives.

3. The Director of Marketing – Involve employees handling the marketing efforts in understanding the importance of having the right efforts and expertise in the marketing and branding of the company. Get them involved in the planning, search, and screening of candidates to whatever degree possible. This ensures that the employees understand the objectives and goals of the company’s marketing efforts. This also enables the new marketing director to come in with a refreshing outlook by all parties to work on developing an exciting and progressive marketing and branding program for the company.

4. Director of Human Resources – The primary function of HR is policy … that is rules, regulations, legalities and the scope and parameter that guide a company’s personnel issues. The Director of HR is responsible for ensuring that proper language and directives are clear, unambiguous and binding.

5. The Chief IT Officer – You must keep in mind that the key to producing great results in IT depends in large part on your ability to chart a strategic vision for the business. This requires you to be able to set and explain a clear interpretation of your vision of what your plan is for the company to achieve in the next 3 years … 5 years … 10 years … and what technology you envision to accomplish these goals.

6. The Chief Executive Officer – This position is a very important decision and anyone you bring to lead the team must have the style and temperament as well as business acumen to know when to challenge you and when to defer to your judgment as the founder and owner. At the same time, you must acknowledge that this is a two-way street. With responsibility, one must have equal authority to perform their duties and execute the plan for success.

Thoughts on Additional Resources / Proper Planning As you build your management team, you need to keep in mind their career paths – your top managers have ambition … and their ambitions usually do not culminate with their current positions. Smart succession planning is a good way to provide key executives with an incentive to remain with your company for the long term. It can also provide you, your investors, your top customers and suppliers with peace of mind. Finally, always provide motivation and incentive … holding out for the perfect candidate for each position can be frustrating and unrealistic, time consuming, and costly, but making a mistake in hiring can be disastrous. Remember … prior planning prevents poor performance.

What are your ideas for building a management team?

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

How to Build a Management Team – Part 6 of a Series

Subtitle: The Chief Executive Officer

You may be asking why would you include a CEO as part of the management team that is being built for a startup company. However, if you are like many entrepreneurs, your forte may not include handling chaos, development, teambuilding, confrontation, multi-tasking or other issues that occur when running a company.  While you may have a great idea or vision, being in-charge may not be your strong suit. For example, many creative people who are sharp at envisioning opportunities and putting them into action with agility and ingenuity have started some great companies, but quickly wear out to the day-to-day challenges of building an organization beyond a certain point … and creating standards and processes for sustaining success and growing the business. If you are one of these type business owners, then it may be best for you to stop thinking about being a boss and start thinking like an owner who puts the right people in position for success. This is when you bring in an outside person to serve as your company’s CEO.

Authority Commensurate with Responsibility

Obviously this is a very important decision and anyone you bring to lead the team must have the style and temperament as well as business acumen to know when to challenge you and when to defer to your judgment as the founder and owner. At the same time, you must acknowledge that this is a two-way street. With responsibility, one must have equal authority to perform their duties and execute the plan for success. The function of the CEO is not to manage “things” but to execute a plan or vision for the success of the company through their direct reports. It is not unusual for some employees to be loyal to you who may not be loyal to the new CEO … and s/he should have every right to manage or fire them, no matter how hard that is on you. But in most such circumstances, the upside is tremendous and enables things to move to that next level that is so important for the company and you.

Function: Improve the Company

Mature leadership such as this usually leads to happiness and satisfaction in your work if you can pass the responsibility for the daily operations to a seasoned and talented executive who can improve the company, the P&L, ROI, and the profit margin. This will allow you to focus on developing the company’s strategic vision during these changing times in the global business world.

What are your thoughts or experiences as an owner or entrepreneur in including a CEO as part of your management team?

Next: Part 7 – A Recap and Touching on Additional Resources

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

How to Build a Management Team – Part 5 of a Series

Subtitle: The Chief IT Officer (CIO)

Choosing and identifying a talented Chief Information Officer (sometimes titled Chief Technology Officer) can seem like a daunting and challenging task for an entrepreneur who is not up to speed or conversant when it comes to new technology … and we all know IT is changing and expanding constantly. That is exactly why it is important to have a smart and well informed CIO as a key player on your management team as early on as possible in your new company as it is growing and expanding its footprint.

Requires Big Picture Thinking

Once you start thinking about filling this position it is important that you assess your company’s short- and long-term technology needs and objectives. You will need to identify the areas where your technology is strong, as well as your vulnerabilities. You need to ponder the job description for a while seeking help from other entrepreneurs you know (friends), management, and possibly an outside consultant or recruiter that specializes in IT. You need to determine your No. 1 Goal … will it be to build and maintain a website (or series of them), or to manage and protect a large volume of valuable customer data or engineering data, etc. Will this position juggle software development projects and new product launches or will you outsource these functions … also hardware needs for the future, etc.? If you answered yes to most or all of these possibilities, then maybe you need to take extra time rethinking and resetting your priorities since getting your startup up and going. This is an important and expensive decision that needs big picture thinking while considering short-term goals and long-term objectives.

One of the “unspoken” areas of concern in this area is will this person have more control of the company than you do. And this is not an unusual thought process and should be addressed openly with forthright understanding with everyone who is helping you as well as the person you decide to hire. One important thing you need to remember when it comes to hiring for this position is that you should not expect this person to be a superhero … if so, they most likely will never meet your expectations.

Clearly Depict Your Vision

You must keep in mind that the key to producing great results in IT depends in large part on your ability to chart a strategic vision for the business. This requires you to be able to set and explain a clear interpretation of your vision of what your plan is for the company to achieve in the next 3 years … 5 years … 10 years … and what technology you envision to accomplish these goals. This will be hard but very important when investing significant dollars in technology for people, hardware, software, systems, programs, consultants, etc. for achieving your goals and objectives for the company.

Confident and Excited

When you take the time to make the right choices and decisions you will be confident and excited for what you have put together and will look forward to hiring the lead IT person and implementing the system/hardware. The right decision for the CIO position will be as big as any decision you make in choosing your management team. I always suggest that when hiring key management positions (actually for any position); look for work ethic as the number one ingredient. Someone with work ethic is a worker, a doer, a fixer, and a thinker who is always scheming how to do better with a commitment for excellence and teambuilding. A good IT person should be able to put IT terminology into easy to understand layman terms. Don’t expect yourself or other management team members to adjust to the IT lingo … look for a CIO who can confidently explain and communicate. Do not settle for anything less.

What has been your experience when hiring the top IT person?

Next: Part 6 – CEO

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

How to Build a Management Team – Part 4 of a Series

Subtitle: The Director of Human Resources

When a new company hits a sustained growth spurt they may need to add employees at a rapid pace. They also tend to handle human resources in an impromptu manner too long. This can be dangerous and should be carefully planned and strategically implemented. The position of Director of Human Resources has changed significantly the past several years and will continue to evolve as our workforce and economy changes. At this time there seems to be unique job descriptions introduced every month as industries change and evolve for the 21^st century.

With such constant change and the necessity for staying attuned to our changing economy and the global markets, I believe it best to list the key functions of a strong HR leader.

Write and Administer Policy

The primary function of HR is policy … that is rules, regulations, legalities and the scope and parameter that guide a company’s personnel issues. Policy writing is a key component of the Director of HR’s position, because it reflects on all phases of hiring, firing, administrative direction and staff-focused operations. The Director of HR is responsible for ensuring that proper language and directives are clear, unambiguous and binding.

Oversee Personnel Contracts

Normally wage negotiations, workplace dynamics, benefit packages, collective bargaining, and dispute resolution all fall within the responsibility of the Directory of Human Resources. The top HR person needs to have a management style that reflects clear communication and a high level of personal confidence while representing management to the employees and the employees to management.

Labor Compliance

The Director of Human Resources is responsible for making certain that federal, state and local laws are interpreted and implemented, therefore staying in sync with OSHA (safety regulations), EEO (equal opportunity), TEFRA (tax), ERISA (retirement), wage/hour and other personnel-specific legislation. In this position one acts as the liaison between top management and governmental sectors and is responsible for informing the company of impending and newly implemented laws as they affect work issues.

Watching the Big Picture

Knowing and anticipating dramatic change, such as a merger, a takeover, re-engineering, plant closing and other highly emotional matters … this position oversees all details involved concerning the change. It is also necessary to be the lead person on labor relations’ trends that will impact the company’s future whether positively or negatively.

Mindful of the Future

The Director of HR must be aware of workforce-related trends and be able to identify and track internal and external forces of emerging conditions and be ahead of employment hiring and policy curves. Furthermore, this position serves as the company’s liaison while overseeing credentialing of employees by directing continuing education, securing of certifications and licenses so the company is always compliant is all requirements.

What are your experiences in helping a new and growing company implement human resources into their management team?

Next: Part 5 – Chief Technology Person

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved

How to Build a Management Team – Part 3 of a Series

Subtitle: The Director of Marketing

When starting a new business it is not unusual to have the notion that the marketing director position is one of the easier to fill positions. But that is not always the case. Many entrepreneurs who do not have marketing experience bootstrap their marketing department as long as possible, often relying on humorous idea promotions and conscientious customer service to build their brand for what is usually a niche market. These efforts are normally led by early administrative employees who came on board to start the company and who don’t have a true background or education in the field of marketing or branding.

Handling Change Can Be Difficult

Once it is determined that it is time to bring on an experienced professional with marketing expertise there can be tensions from the early employees because of necessary changes that affect the established culture. The early employees have been working hard at doing what they feel is a good job and then someone with proven marketing experience arrives that has new ideas that do not include their previous perceptions and causes concern. This can lead to classic cultural change conflicts that can be avoided with proper planning and execution. It is important for the leader to be aware of this potential problem and prepare his team for this change and not spring it on them with an unannounced new hire. This would not be good for the established employees or for the newly hired marketing director.

Positive Culture Change

A better way to handle this is to involve the employees handling the marketing efforts in understanding the importance of having the right efforts and expertise in the marketing and branding of the company. Get them involved in the planning, search, and screening of candidates to whatever degree possible. This ensures that the employees understand the objectives and goals of the company’s marketing efforts. This also enables the new marketing director to come in with a refreshing outlook by all parties to work on developing an exciting and progressive marketing and branding program for the company.

Military Axiom: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance (5Ps)

Next: Part 4 – The Top HR Person

What are your experiences when hiring the first top marketing person?

© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved