On-Going Leadership Development: Do you make the time?

Having recently joined the team at KCG, I am excited about infiltrating some of the practices and assessment tools I have used through my background in human resources and my experience as an executive coach with our current clients.

I work with executives to help them become more effective as they navigate the course of what is inherently a very tough job. Most often, I work with executives who are already performing well within their role, but who want to continue their development because they want to evolve professionally. As they grow in their respective roles, their assignments inevitably become more challenging (or more challenging in different ways), and they want to be at the top of their game.

I can certainly relate, and you probably can as well.

That being said, in my work I have found that the number of executives who actually do not pay attention to their own ongoing development -- and too often to the development of their direct reports -- is shockingly high. Moreover, research on executive derailment shows that only half of all executives succeed. This data is pretty scary. Knowing that the good intentions exist, I can only surmise that the immediate pressures of their job take priority. Of course, most of us can understand (all too well), that dealing with the imminent issues of the day-to-day automatically pushes something as idealistic sounding as a professional development plan to the back burner. Sure, it sounds nice, but who has time to dedicate to an “optional” development plan when there are five meetings, two proposals and 30 emails to attend to – before lunch?

So I am sympathetic to the demands that take precedence. Yet, I am also not convinced that it is these demands alone that obliterate the good intentions. In combination with the pressing issues of their day-to-day work, these good intentions wither because so many executives simply do not know how to implement progressive developmental changes. If only they could understand the immense positive impact of moving from good to great, then I am certain more executives would devote the time and energy to following through with their intentions.

Consider this: the time commitment now is a mild irritation, but ignoring the call to action will most likely result in a full blown inflammation in due time. As I mentioned, the data is illustrative of that fact.

Does any of this resonate with you?

If so, ask yourself the following:

• Do you have a serious leadership development plan?
• Is the plan targeted to leadership competencies that will help you deliver your expected business results?
• Are you aggressively working the plan?

I find that when I ask these questions, very few executives answer “yes.”

Again to provoke you:

If you could answer “yes” would the benefits make it worthwhile to you?

Sales Primer 101 – Part I of II

I recently gave a presentation to The Digital Corridor http://www.charlestondigitalcorridor.com/, to an audience of representatives from various knowledge-based companies in the Charleston area. It was exciting to address a diverse audience with the same goal in mind – optimizing sales performance.

The discussion – “Sales Strategies Primer” – focused on establishing a firm foundation on which to build any Sales and Marketing agenda. Only by laying consistent and solid groundwork can any one of us ever hope to be successful. Yet the fundamentals are often overlooked in favor of trendy, gimmicky, “of the moment” strategies. As one of the audience members put it during the Q and A session, “It is amazing that with all the advancements in technology and otherwise, what truly makes a company successful really has not changed over the years.”

I agree.

As a speaker and as a consultant, I thrive off of developing new and innovative solutions to business issues. Yet there are times when it makes more sense to simply put a fresh perspective on the tried and true. This circumstance was one of those times. And, while the audience was comprised of many seasoned professionals, this opportunity to spend a little time re-analyzing our foundations was time well-spent. After all, the cracks at the top often start at the bottom.

I split the discussion into two parts:

• Product / Solution Management


• Sales and Management Best Practices

I will cover the first part in this blog (stay tuned for part II later this month).

The first section of the speech, Product / Solution Management, encouraged the audience to analyze the who, what, where and when of the sales and marketing cycle. Understanding what it is you are selling, to whom are you selling it, and at what value to the consumer are all integral to success.

Can you articulate your sales and marketing strategy? If not (or worse yet), you don’t have one, the following questions and thoughts should be quite helpful.

Internally Focused Questions:

• What are you selling – a product, service or a solution?
• What problem does your offering solve?
• Where are you in your organization’s life cycle? (i.e. Are you just entering the market Trying to move upstream? Migrating down market?)
• Where do you fit on the competitive landscape? What are you doing to differentiate yourself?
• How is your product priced? Is any part of your pricing methodology a barrier to sale?
• What is the ROI of your solution (perceived or otherwise)? Can you quantify it?

Externally Focused Questions:

• Who is your ideal customer?
• How large is the potential market? (see Market Pyramid example below)
• Is there a specific market segment where you are best suited? What is their buying cycle?
• What position within the company does the person you are approaching hold?
• What is the market discipline of the companies to whom you are selling? (Organizational Excellence? Customer Intimacy? Product Leadership?)

Market Pyramid - Gauging the size of your potential market

So how did you do? If you were able to articulate the responses to each of the above questions quickly, clearly, and concisely, then congratulations; you probably have a well-crafted strategy and are well on your way….but remember, a plan is only a component, sales execution is what really establishes success.

With that in mind, let’s move on to Part II…

Opening Pockets While Tightening Belts

As someone who has worked extensively in and with organizations who serve the non-profit arena, I was recently asked to deliver a speech to the Lowcountry Chapter of Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). The speech was entitled “Opening Pockets while Tightening Belts” and focused on how to optimize organizational practices in order to maximize charitable donations - despite the rather dismal current economic conditions.

Never one to sugar-coat, I started the speech off with some tangible snapshots of the economic adversaries we as a nation are currently facing. Pervasive newspaper headlines highlighting the grim stock market conditions, the crashing housing market and general consumer trepidation seem to beg the question that is on every non-profit executive’s mind: how is this dismal economy going to impact our fundraising efforts?

The first point I made was that the current recession and the weak economic environment does not have a direct correlation to fundraising success. Actually, since 1969 we have had six reported official recessions (indicated by red rectangles in the graph) and during each one of these periods, giving actually increased on a year over year basis. Admittedly, the year over year growth was much less than in non-recessionary years. However, the key take-a-way is that charitable giving continues. In fact, total charitable giving has only fallen once, in 1987 – and that had less to do with economic forces and was largely due to a 1986 tax law modification that motivated donors to “pre-donate” 1987 gifts during calendar year 1986. (Giving USA Spotlight, Issue 3, (2008). Giving USA Foundation).

Graph incorporates data compiled from Giving USA Foundation and Guidestar.org

Now, some audience members were understandably skeptical about these facts because during the same periods, they have heard about and / or personally experienced year over year decreases in charitable giving. This reality is a testament to the fact that each organization has its own ups and downs. The point is that there is opportunity to prosper despite the economy. I reviewed a study that was conducted by the Giving USA Foundation which illustrated that during a recession, 54% of surveyed organizations actually reported increased year over year giving.

Graph incorporates data compiled from Giving USA Foundation and Guidestar.org

So the question posed was, “How do we ensure that we are not part of the remaining organizations that experience year over year giving being flat or, worse yet, down?”

You can start by remembering a few fundamental principals:

• Develop a fundraising plan. Stick to it.
• Establish and track metrics for critical aspects of your program.
• Have diversification of fundraising programs / vehicles.
• Lead by example – ensure you have 100% Board and Executive giving.
• Solidify your organizational elevator pitch – mission, vision, values, goals, greatest needs, points of differentiation, etc. Practice it.
• Remember that keeping current donors is easier than attracting new donors.
• Know that people give to people – board solicitations, phone calls, personal visits.
• Leverage the holiday spirit. Not just ‘tis the season to give….but support a meaningful cause vs. buying Aunt Susie another pair of slippers.
• Re-invent / re-evaluate special events.
• Commit to stewardship – provide a timely “thank you.” Be accountable as to how you spend the donor’s investment.
• ASK for the gift….and be clear on its impact.

Since the title of the presentation was “Opening Pockets while Tightening Belts,” most people assumed the entire focus of the presentation would be on what organizations could do to motivate donors to give money. While this issue is clearly a major component, I also wanted to set the stage that now is a great time for organizations to focus on the future. Now is an instrumental time to make strategic investments vs. hunkering down and hoping to weather the storm.

I offered some key suggestions:

• Invest in the professional development of an organizational strategic plan. Nothing is more powerful than a plan that keeps you focused when fires are burning on multiple fronts.
• Collaborate with “like minded” organizations. How many times do you see organizations trying to do too much or to do that which is outside of their mission?
• Mergers & Acquisitions - not just for Wall Street. If a small community has four after-school programs, how much more effective could the programs be if back-office and administrative activities were centralized?
• Make fundraising everyone’s job. Do not enable staff members to point down the hall to the Director of Development’s office when asked who is responsible for fundraising.
• Invest in technology – whether it be to improve your website’s design and functionality, leverage social marketing tools or streamline your fundraising database.
• Modify Board governance – too often Boards become large and lethargic. Fill the Board with business-minded, committed supporters. Develop a “farm team” that is comprised of advisory and project-specific committees.

People seemed to acquire the optimism that often accompanies fresh perspective. Hopefully the majority left the session with a sense direction and faith in having a successful fundraising year – despite the economic downturn.
A PDF version of the presentation is available on our website at: www.knowledgecapitalgroup.com/insights.php

As always, I encourage you to comment on this blog and provide any suggestions you deem meaningful.

Quick Hits : Business Optimization Overnight

A number of terms have been coined by the experts/gurus over the years as the latest trend to re-engineer and improve an organization's operations. Total Quality Management. Business Process Re-Engineering. Six Sigma. ISO 900x. The list goes on.

Each one of these approaches certainly did (and do) have merit, yet they can be daunting to an organization that doesn't have the time, budget, or experienced resources to take on an initiative of this magnitude. The ironly of some of these approaches is that they themselves are complex and over-engineered. Considering the time and effort associated with running a business on a day-to-day basis, many organizations are forced to default to the status-quo.

The good is news is that there are perfectly legitimate and productive ways to turn operational processes around in a short period of time (i.e, days, weeks) without the need for heavy investment. Not to mention the fact that the business world is a better place without the corny big-project monikers such as "Project Phoenix" or "Ignite".:)

One very straight-forward approach that I works remarkably well involves business process mapping workshops. Here's how it works:

• A handful of staff members associated with a specific business process (i.e., order entry, billing, acccounts receivable, customer support, etc.) are brought together in a 1 day workshop. The goal set for the workshop is simply to "improve the way we do things".


• Facilitated by a moderator, the group begins to indentify each step in the overall process. This includes identifying the people and resources, decision points, system interactions, reports, etc. The processes are captured in real time using a flowcharting tool (Visio) by the moderator similar to the one illustrated.
  
  


• Once the process is captured, the group works through each step to identify and document the issues and opportunities that impact the overall efficiency of the process. The visual nature of the maps is very helpful to particpants here as they can more easily see what is...and isn't...working.


• Based on these findings, a series of quick-hit action items are identified. Responsibility is assigned to the appropriate people in the room to take action within a given timeframe.

The approach itself is not rocket-science. The results are nonetheless impressive...

• The on-the-fly process maps provide a structured and common way for the particpants to discuss how the business is run. Particpants tend to rally around the flow maps and engage in a dialog that would not have otherwise come up during the normal course of business. One client recently told me "We've been talking about these problems for the last 20 years...and we addressed them all in one day."


• Particpants have engaged in a process that helps them understand how the business is run, where the issues may be, and where opportunities lie. The process is fun, interactive and engaging. They feel that they have made a difference in figuring out how to improve things.


• Quick hits can easily be identified and remedied while establishing buy-in on the spot.


• Many organizations have found value in the fact that the processes are simply documented. This certainly helps from a training and risk-management perspective. In one recent case, I encouraged a client to include a new employee in the workshops. By the end of the session, not only had she acquired a deep knowledge of how a specific area of the busines, but she became empowered to take responsobility for the things that weren't working in her new position.

It's clear and proven that this approach can work in almost any type of organization. That said, keep the following in mind:

• Esure that you have a very strong workshop facilitator. The success of this initiative is directly proportional to the abilities of the facilitator to quickly grasp and understand the business while managing the discussion during the workshop. Electronic flow charting skills are a must. The facilitator should be engaging and be able to keep the discussions on-track.


• Execute. Work quickly to organize quick-hit items with a plan for implementation. The plan should include an assigned responsibility, timeline and the support needed to be successful.

Clikc here to learn more about KCG's Business Process Mapping skills.