Improving Employee Accountability

For those of you who don’t know the name Ferdinand Fournies in connection with the field of leadership, it’s a good name to know. His book, “Coaching for improved worked performance” is still the gold standard for leaders seeking to improve the performance of their managers and their own direct reports.

One of the concepts in his book is why people don’t do the work they are assigned or assume. One useful theory says there are 3 primary reasons for performance dysfunction:

A.The employee does not know how to perform the task.
B.The employee does not want to perform the task.
C.The employee perceives there is something or someone hindering or
preventing from performing the task.

Fournies says that “A” means are we are not training properly; “B” is tied to motivation and “C” can be a psychological or physical impediment.

When you are having a performance problem in your company, test for these three primary causes, capability, desire and/or impediments, real or imagined. Change the cause and you’ll likely change the result.

It’s not psychology. It’s humaneering.

Coaching for Entrepreneurs

If you are a new or a young entrepreneur, building a business can be a challenging and
completely enjoyable experience. Or you may find yourself working constantly at the edge of your experience; you're out of ideas, experience and money all at the same time.

As a coach there are several ways in which I, or others who offer similar services can assist you.

First, I would ask what drives you? I can tell you that what drives all of us is needs and values. Our needs motivate us for short term achievements and our values, those ideas that guide us over the long term keep us on track and sustain us in our efforts to fit in, or explore new ideas.

There is probably no greater exercise for entrepreneurs than to go through some serious thinking and prioritization of their own personal values. Coaches usually have a set of guidelines and exercises that are useful and with an understanding of what ideas about right and wrong direct your actions, interactions with others and the relationships you form, you can then describe to others how they can also be successful in working with you.

Second, I'd explore with you what I call the 8 Equities of Life. We'd talk about the different roles you assume in your life and again what kind of priority you place on each of those roles. Sometimes your own priority is not compatible with the demands of running a small business.
Better to understand that in advance than try to work through ambivalent feelings about
values as you are working to build your business.

The 8 Equities are: Physical, Personal, Financial, Psychological, Social, Intellectual, Professional, Spiritual, and when you study and put them in perspective according to your own life, you get a clearer picture of what has meaning for you, and what does not.

Once we had this kind of information, I'd also recommend a Behavior Profile, to help you learn more about yourself, your behavior tendencies, and how those tendencies will help or hinder your responsibilities as a leader in your business.

If you are seeking some counsel on how to improve your personal leadership skills and capabilities, or how to improve your entrepreneurial organization, perhaps we can be of service.
hmnrng.com

My way or the highway

In an "Understanding Behavior" workshop once, the leader noted that with entrepreneurs, the self-same behavior characteristics that contribute to their success, are also the areas in which they likely need the most development.
Our greatest strengths in one circumstance, are our most significant character weaknesses in different situations.

One example is this: Entrepreneurs are often independent, self-directed, single-minded "shoot first/aim later" kinds of people. These "my way or the highway" behavior tendencies are fine when only one, or a very few other people are involved.

When the time comes to enlist the input of others, moving from a cooperative situation toward a collaborative, team contribution approach, the entrepreneur/leader MUST change.

The task is to replace the "I can do it myself" belief system to one where a premium is placed on teaching others to perform at high levels. For entrepreneurial companies to grow, the leaders must move from a dynamic of personal responsibility to one of cooperation with others, and ultimately to the concept of collaboration.

Cooperation, often seen as the ultimate expression of teamwork, is not. Collaboration, the intellectual entrepreneur's strength, is the means to set aside personal agendas so that the value of the team's resolution is greater than any individual's contribution.

Essentially, cooperation is everyone giving up part of their own solution, until the final agreement is a diluted compromise. Collaboration is where everyone sets aside their own agenda and works on a new solution paradigm that in the end, everyone supports enthusiastically.

Entrepreneurs, cast out your arrogance! Collaborate, collaborate collaborate.

The forces that move entrepreneurs

There is a theory about the dynamics of organizations. Although I don't know the source, and my apologies to its creator, it is a very good description of what happens in organizations to impede or enhance their development.
From the moment an organization is conceived, all of the people involved have the opportunity to manage, or be managed by at least 3 separate, but intertwined forces.
They are:
- Achieve the Purpose. This dynamic sets a call to action to define the organization's purpose,
then to achieve or at least make strides
toward achieving the purpose.
- Support the Group. This dynamic calls for cooperation and collaboration among the group's
members. In a combined effort, the teams are able to produce a product or service that benefits the group itself, or that some outside person or organization appreciates and for
which they even may be willing to pay.
-Recognize Individual Contributions. This is the most human of dynamics, the need we
all have to feel valued for our dedication, input, diligence, loyalties, ideas, overtime, etc.

When leaders and managers work purposefully to insure that all three of these dynamics are supported, through specific plans and actions, the organization has a better chance at viability and growth.

First, because the people themselves are clear about their organizational, departmental and individual reasons for the membership in the organization. There are clear expectations, for results, acceptable methods and use of resources, up and down the organization.
Second, purposeful efforts are made to uphold cooperation and collaboration with the goal of serving customers with excellence. The two terms have different meanings, but the point is that when leaders notice any disturbance in "the force" they take action to focus activities on
customer service and away from internal individual or departmental differences that lower
value to the customer.
Third, organizations that people are generally happy to work for make sure that people, as individuals and in groups, are recognized when they achieve excellence. And that recognition has to genuinely matter to the people who have performed well. (No use handing out frozen turkeys if what people really want is an afternoon off!)

Similar to the powerful dynamics of weather, which can be highly beneficial, or highly destructive, an understanding of these three dynamics can radically improve the way leaders gain support from their followers or can contribute to organizational dysfunction.

There are, of course many other aspects to this model of organizational dynamics and I invite you to explore how they effect your own organization. hmnrng.com theecoach.blogspot.com

Balance Matters

As an entrepreneur's coach, part of the responsibility is to work on the client's balance.
Entrepreneur's tend to be energetic, hard-driving and single minded. We certainly want to support those characteristics that promote organizational development and growth, but most entrepreneur's also have a life, outside their businesses. That life needs attention too.
Unless there is some balance between the work life and the personal life, both will suffer. When clients for my coaching services ask what I can do for them, I usually begin by telling them my aim is to help them have lives of purpose, balance, and results.
There is an exercise, The Eight Equities of Life, that I've used to help my colleagues review, then gain, or re-gain some balance in their lives using their own priorities. The eight equities are descriptions of the roles and responsibilities in our lives. They are:

• spiritual equity,
• physical,
• professional(career)
• personal or individual,
• intellectual,
• psychological/emotional,
• social and
• financial

Entrepreneurs can build an excellent "life base" for themselves by setting aside time to examine their understanding, beliefs and feelings about these eight equities of life. Then the responsibility is to set priorities and allocate time and heartbeats according to those beliefs.
Balance for entrepreneurs is about purposeful living, responding to the entire scope of needs, in ourselves and in those we care about and love.

Big Rocks

There is a demonstration you may have seen.

It involves a large, clear glass jug, fist-size Big Rocks, pebbles, sand, and water. The idea is to reveal to the audience the folly of trying to put big, important priorities(the big rocks) into your schedule(the glass jug), AFTER you've used your time attending to smaller, less important issues(pebbles, sand and water). Fill up the jug - your life - with pebbles, sand and water - lesser priorities - and you have no room for your top priorities - your Big Rocks - .

Unless you identify and attend to your larger, more important business priorities first
- your Big Rocks - it is likely that your time, energy, creativity and money will be used up on minor goals or projects.

One client of mine identified his own Big Rocks, in priority:
- Development of his core group of team mates,
- Marketing, which is the lifeblood of business viability,
- Systems and process improvement, and
- Financial management.

Identify and prioritize your own Big Rocks. It works for every organization, every department and every person, and it will help you focus on what YOU need to do each day as a leader.

Entrepreneurial Beliefs

In an earlier post, we discussed how our beliefs influence our actions.

There may be no more obvious example of this idea than in how many entrepreneurs go about hiring people in their companies. The people you hire are the very essence of what makes your company work, or not. It is their own actions, their interactions with others and the caliber of their relationships that will produce viability or erosion in your firm.

Every position you hire is vital, you are essentially placing the success of your company in the hands of people who will either care for it, or through their own actions when unsupervised,
permit their own personal agenda to supersede that of the company mission.

I recommend to my clients that they always begin the process of human resource management with an exercise on values. Values, those concepts we hold in high regard, that guide our lives, are what holds organizations together. Shared, common values among people in organizations often result in shared perspectives, alignment of action and a regard for serving others as we, ourselves would be served.

An exercise I recommend is this: When hiring for any position, begin first by describing the characteristics you would expect this new hire to exhibit, even in the worst of circumstances.
Would you expect them to be communicative, punctual, perhaps diligent? Would this person best demonstrate the spirit of customer service by going the extra mile, by understanding the client so well that they could make suggestions on more effective use of products or services or by protecting the company position at all costs?

Challenge what you believe about the hiring process by developing a list of words describing the kind of person you'd like representing your company. You will improve your hiring process, and with a description of the personality characteristics you find compatible with your current team members and your customers, you can begin the search for those people who fit that description.

Crafting an interview to focus on those characteristics is the next step.

The Wisdom of Gandalf the Grey

In the movie trilogy, Lord of the Rings, there is a conversation between Gandalf the Grey, wizard, advisor and all around smart person, and Frodo, the young, courageous, but vulnerable hero.

Amidst some considerable difficulties their group is having, Frodo says he wishes that the situation were not so bleak, that if he could, he'd prefer not to have the responsibilities he carries.

Gandalf, in a kind, supporting and yet penetrating manner, replies that we do not always get to choose the circumstances which we encounter, and then the zinger. "All we have is to decide what to do with the time given to us," says he.

With clarity about "what to do with the time given to us", we can move forward confidently in a direction of our own choosing, regardless of the temporary distractions. It's the course our lives take more than the momenatry sidetracks that create a business, or a life of value.

If, as an entrepreneur, you sometimes feel you don't know the best use of your time; if you are confused about what activities have real and high value for you and your company and what's a waste of time; if you feel as if a plan for your business would be useful, perhaps we can be of value.

We invite your comments, suggestions or inquiries.
fbvalue@bellsouth.net The Entrepreneur's Coach

A common entrepreneurial mistake

Entrepreneurs, almost to a person, think mostly about "growing" their companies. The thinking goes something like this; "The more customers I have, the more money I have. The more money I have the more employees I can hire. The more employees I can hire, the more customers I can win over."

While I am a big fan of organizational growth, I am a much strong advocate of organizational development. The difference is simple, but genuinely profound in terms of how it can benefit, or do serious harm to your business.

Growth means to increase in size or number. It really does mean more of stuff...inventory, sales, desks, computers, employees, customers.

Development addresses the need to improve individual and company capabilities. To improve our people, the processes we use to produce work product and how we manage the performance of our individual and team behavior is what enables us to grow our companies in a controlled manner(read profitable).

When organizational leaders believe that growth and development are the same concept, what they focus on is growth and the idea of capability improvement is relegated to happenstance, or
in the worst cases, is addressed only when serious problems present themselves after the fact, due to poor capability.

Cash flow problems, personnel issues, things that get lost in the cracks, having to redo the same task several times, product quality complaints...are all more about a lack of development than they are about growing pains. But most entrepreneurs allocate those and other issues to
those growing pains without really understanding or addressing the need to improve:

• individual or group knowledge,
• insight,
• skills or
• capabilities.

One way to improve your organizational development is to focus on hiring. Hire people with the correct history of accomplishment, values compatible with yours and your other key people, demonstrable insight into issues similar to the ones in your company and with the ability to produce more value than they cost the company.

Otherwise you are risking "growing" your company out of business because your capabilities will ultimately not be able to continue to service the demands of the increasing size of your customer base. Then, after the fact, development gets really, REALLY expensive. See paragraph 6 above.

If you want to get a few more ideas on how I think a focus on development can really benefit your entrepreneurial company, visit hmnrng.com

A short comment on nationalized health care

Does it make sense to anyone that every member of Congress who has the authority to vote on health care for US, should do so with the idea that THEY will also be required to be on those same rolls and receive the same healthcare service?

If you agree that Congress should include themselves and every government worker in the health plan they want to legislate for us, please visit Congressman John Fleming's website and support his effort to make this idea a mandate for national health care.

It's also a VERY good idea for retirement funding as well. My Mom used to say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Help us find out if Congress really believes what they want US to believe about their healthcare plan.

http://fleming.house.gov/?sectionid=7&sectiontree=4,7