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 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