Customer Service and The Wait-Time Misery Index

Recently there was an interesting article in the WSJ about new innovative ways companies are using by improving customer service and raise customer satisfaction for their products and company. Nothing is worse than non-performance or having to wait around for hours.

Not only does waiting increase stress, but creates a bad impression with clients. Many companies do not even provide 4 hour windows, but 8 hour windows, which kills the whole day. The longer in the day that service is finally provided, the less satisfaction a customer generally has.

Maybe some people of have heard of the Wait-Time Misery Index, but if not, it is a useful definition for measuring potential customer satisfaction. The greater the misery, the less customer satisfaction there will be.

The best adage is under promise and over deliver!

What new ways can you create to help reduce this index for your company? What change management techniques can be employed? How much do you communicate the need for great customer service and what metrics do you have in place to manage it and improve it? How can technology and IT, social media, visioning exercises, and strategic planning help to improve performance around this index? 

Have you, your C-Suite and Marketing personnel given thought to this? If so, how effective have you been? If not, why not?

(Link to the article is at the end.)

The Wait-Time Misery Index

Why Do Deliveries Trap You at Home For Hours; Strategies to Speed Things Up

By RAY A. SMITH

Would you wait around if your friend was four hours late for dinner? No, but your cable company thinks this is a reasonable window of time to wait for service.
Now some companies are whittling down the wait window to two hours and trying to improve communication with customers. Some send texts with arrival updates while others reveal online where people rank in the day's delivery queue. The thinking: people, trapped in the house waiting for something to be delivered or installed or repaired, will feel less powerless if they know what to expect.

Everyone hates waiting for the phone company to come connect service or for a mattress to be delivered. Ray Smith on Lunch Break looks at which companies are innovating in this area and what effect waiting has on our sanity.

More than 50% of adults used a sick day or vacation day to wait at home for a service or delivery, according to a 2011 survey of more than 1,000 people by TOA Technologies, a Beachwood, Ohio-based firm that works with companies to reduce customer wait times. More than 25% of people surveyed lost wages while waiting.

People often become more stressed by the uncertainty, says Richard Wurtman, a neuropharmacologist and distinguished professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The underlying personality will determine the extent to which you are vulnerable to stress induced from waiting."
Shaving two hours is a big leap, companies say, because so many factors affect delivery from traffic to calculating the time a repair or installation will actually take.

General Electric began experimenting with moving from four-hour windows to two-hour windows last year for its appliance deliveries in the Midwest. UPS late last year launched a program called My Choice which, for a $40 fee, offers customers a two-hour window delivery option. Use of the service has been strong, UPS says.

FreshDirect, a grocery-delivery service based in New York, offers two-hour wait windows. Less than a year ago, it began giving people $2 discounts on its usual $5.95 delivery fee to choose a "green" time slot—a window in which the company knows it has trucks in the customer's neighborhood. It is marketed as an eco-friendly innovation, but it also has the effect of grouping deliveries for more efficiency.

Linda Peterson, an interior designer from Atlanta, says she has resorted to paying more for an appliance-repair company called Appliance Doctor that guarantees two-hour windows, even though it costs at least 25% more, she says, than if she called the manufacturers of the appliances or other repair services.

"I didn't want to pay the premium, but I became so frustrated and being asked to wait for more than two hours was exasperating," she says. She finds even two hours hard to bear. In August, while waiting for a repairman, she began ironing linens to take her mind off the time. He arrived close to the end of the window and the work took awhile. "It was probably 50 napkins, four or five tablecloths easily," she says.

Calling during the wait window to inquire about the status of a shipment or delivery generally is not worth your time, companies say. That's because a customer will likely be calling the retailer, but usually the delivery is handled by a separate delivery company.

Service visits can be a different story. Bill Kula, a spokesman for Verizon, says usually that kind of inquiry wouldn't make a difference. That said, if a customer calls near the end of a promised window, perhaps 30 minutes before the time is up, it could be helpful. Verizon could see if there is a technician nearby who could reach the customer ahead of the scheduled technician, Mr. Kula says.

To make deliveries within a two-hour time slot, more companies are investing in software that helps determine the most efficient route The technology can shave time off trips by taking into account speed limits, for example, and estimating how long a stop will take based on service type.

"In the not too distant future, companies will be able to tighten that window to one hour," says Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group, a Sewickley, Pa., transportation and logistics consulting firm.

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"I see companies using the two-hour window as a significant marketing thing," says Bruce Champeau, Room & Board chief operating officer. The furniture retailer has had a two-hour window in effect since the mid-1990s. "It's a matter of respecting the customer's time," says Mr. Champeau.

Room & Board uses scheduling software that factors in variables from traffic routes, including roadwork detours, to how long furniture assembly might take. Employees make additional updates and adjustments accordingly.

A small delivery window can give a company a leg up on rivals. With the far and fervent reach of social media, a very good or very bad delivery experience can go viral. Increasingly shoppers are broadcasting their anger—and naming company names—on customer review sites like Yelp, and on Facebook and Twitter. In the TOA Technologies survey, 16% of respondents said they post complaints online.

When it comes to waiting, a maddening factor is often the lack of information. Is the company on its way? More companies are trying to give customers status reports during the appointment window. Some businesses believe this reduces customer stress.

This is what New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority found after it began installing digital clocks to display the number of minutes before the next subway train would arrive on the platform. So far, 209 of its 468 stations have the clocks.

"It's the 21st century," says MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz. "There are expectations that real-time information be available to customers."

3PD Inc., of Marietta, Ga., which hires local carriers on behalf of large national retailers to handle the final leg—or what the industry calls "the last mile"—of a delivery, plans to add a similar style of communication for customers later this year. Using an app, 3PD's customers will be able to look up how far away a delivery is from arriving, says Will O'Shea, chief sales and marketing officer.

Some enterprising small concierge companies have emerged in recent years to do the waiting for you in your home for a fee. Some charge around $35 an hour.


When Victoria Kingscott's cable went on the fritz, the 25-year-old senior analyst at a financial services firm in New York says Time Warner Cable told her she couldn't get a Saturday appointment for three weeks. She couldn't take off work during the week, so she booked a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. appointment for a Saturday last August and waited. When the big day came, she waited some more.

At noon, she became antsy. She called and was assured a technician would arrive within the hour. At 1 p.m. she called again. Apologies were offered. "I said 'this is unacceptable. It's a Saturday. I have things to do.'" She was given a second four-hour appointment window and told she was "next."

More hours of waiting, more calls. At one point Ms. Kingscott was erroneously told the technician was at her home. He was not. Finally, the technician showed up around 4 p.m. "He didn't really say he was sorry or offer any kind of explanation," she says.

"Clearly that is not an optimal customer service experience," says Alex Dudley, a Time Warner Cable spokesman. "The overwhelming majority of our installations go well."

The Wait-Time Misery Index 

When should Visionaries and Leaders step down or move over?

A recent article in the NYTimes talks about Visionaries and Succession. The key is that many founders tend to stay too long and may become too fixated on what worked in the the beginning. Only really truly growth oriented managers can keep their companies growing and remaining extremely viable.

It's up to the Board to make sure that the CEO/Chairman is delivering the results desired and needed, and whether he/she is growing with the company. Many times, high growth companies outgrow their original owners. It is realizing when it is best to step down that is critical.

Enjoy the article below. The original link can be found that the end of the article.

Tech Visionaries and the Succession Question

By QUENTIN HARDY

November 19, 2011

“Founders stay too long, and they chase out the next generation of leaders,” says Kevin Rollins, who served three years as chief executive of Dell before he was replaced by the company’s founder, Michael S. Dell.
Techdom turns out many wonderfully rational products with cool precision.
Which seems amazing at times, given how some high-tech companies are run. Up in the C-suite, emotion can trump reason, particularly on issues like succession and corporate governance.
Silicon Valley and the rest of the technology industry are rich in visionary founders and strong early leaders, those whizzes who dream up game-changing products and strategies. These executives are often celebrated, even mythologized, and with reason: The right one can make employees and shareholders rich. Perhaps only in fashion and entertainment are leaders with the magic touch also so lauded.

 

Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters“Founders stay too long, and they chase out the next generation of leaders,” says Kevin Rollins, who served three years as chief executive of Dell before he was replaced by the company’s founder, Michael S. Dell.

Visionaries are fantastic, but their companies are often notoriously hard to run. Sometimes, these leaders cling to dated visions and stifle innovation. And sometimes, they simply won’t get out of the way. Promising executives with new ideas get fed up and leave.
“No one wants to talk about it, but founders stay too long, and they chase out the next generation of leaders,” says Kevin Rollins, the former chief executive of Dell, the computer maker. “It’s really the fault of the board, which doesn’t manage the strategy and sticks with a founder whose vision has run out of gas.”
Mr. Rollins speaks from an interesting perspective: He was Dell’s C.E.O. from 2004 to 2007, when he was ousted and replaced by the company’s founder, Michael S. Dell. Mr. Dell had given up the C.E.O. spot to become chairman — until he wanted his old job back.
Mr. Rollins, who was paid tens of millions of dollars as C.E.O., oversaw a series of disappointing quarterly earnings, and Dell’s share price fell 9 percent during his tenure. He acknowledges that his comments may be seen as sour grapes, but he is standing by them.
“There is my case, but there is also the case of Cisco, Microsoft, Research in Motion and Yahoo,” Mr. Rollins says. “You are going to see a big succession problem in the next three years, and the boards probably won’t do anything about grooming for succession until the next generation of leaders gets in and has problems.”
Charles H. Giancarlo, a managing director at Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm specializing in technology, says succession “has become a lunchtime topic in the Silicon Valley.”
He knows something about the issue, too. He spent nearly 20 years at Cisco Systems, and became the executive vice president and chief development officer. But he quit in 2007 over disagreements about the performance of the longtime C.E.O., John T. Chambers.
Mr. Giancarlo says many technology companies are at a turning point. “People are realizing that the business has gone from unbelievable leadership, with teams making the right calls, to those companies meandering and failing,” he says. Like Mr. Rollins, Mr. Giancarlo concedes that he may sound like a whiner. “On the other hand,” he says, “you might want to look at the performance of the company and think there is something to it.”
Cisco’s share price, for instance, has fallen to $18.42 as of Friday from almost $43 in early 2001. Both Cisco and Dell have underperformed the broad stock market in recent years.
Mr. Rollins says Mr. Dell balked at his ideas about moving beyond PCs. Mr. Giancarlo says Mr. Chambers created a thicket of time-sucking boards and councils that led to endless meetings.
“Councils are how every dictator organizes below themselves,” Mr. Giancarlo says. “It prevents any real challenger from rising up.”
A Dell spokesman said that, under Mr. Dell, the company has made “significant progress” in diversifying its business. “Mr. Dell has recruited the strongest, most capable and stable senior management team in the industry,” the spokesman wrote in an e-mail.
A spokesman for Cisco noted that the company earlier this year streamlined its decision-making and exited a business in consumer cameras, among other changes.
Similar accusations of aging vision and lack of succession are leveled against Microsoft, which has had a stream of top leaders leave. Last week, Microsoft’s C.E.O., Steve Ballmer, the longtime best friend of Bill Gates, declared that the era of cloud computing and the explosion of new computing devices was great news for Windows, the operating system born on the PC.
A Microsoft spokesman, Frank Shaw, says the fact that senior Microsoft leaders have left to run companies such as Juniper Networks and Nokia indicates that the company builds leaders.
“You want that,” Mr. Shaw says. “We are good at grooming talent, and we still have a very strong bench.”
As for being hung up on Windows, Mr. Shaw notes that under Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft has grown in areas like enterprise software and gaming.
Other tech companies seem to do a solid job of succession. EMC, which after earlier troubles has made many successful cloud investments, plans to move up an internal candidate to succeed the current C.E.O., who promises to move on to become chairman for a short time. I.B.M. recently named its second internal candidate in a row to the top job.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management at Yale, says tech boards have a hard time managing founders and early leaders, since those executives also have exceptional value.
“The founder and the early leader can do certain things to change the company, too. Rollins couldn’t change the company religion, but Dell can — he has inspirational authority,” Mr. Sonnenfeld says.
Though some such leaders, like An Wang at Wang Computer or Kenneth Olsen at the Digital Equipment Corporation, didn’t always adjust to changing times, Mr. Sonnenfeld says that Steve Jobs was able to change Apple precisely because he was a charismatic founder.
“The board is challenged to ask if this person is frozen in time,” Mr. Sonnenfeld says.
“They have to benchmark the performance against other companies, see where the revenues are coming from.” He adds: “The board can fear the founder, but that is O.K. if he is growing with the business.”

Tech Visionaries and the Succession Question

Cloud computing results in "Asymmetric Warfare" being employed by Google against Microsoft

The strategic approach that Google is using, is "asymmetric warfare", significantly pricing one's product below the price point of a competitor while at the same time forcing your competitor to incur increased costs.

In addition to the strategy change, there has also been a noted change in behavior once people and companies start using "cloud computing" has been observed, per reports in yesterday's New York Times, by the company: Journal Communications. Greater interchange of ideas and network sharing is taking place.

In all, the internet and cloud computing can rapidly change strategies on a global basis, as well as radically change competitive pricing and costs. CEOs and senior managers need to be aware of this rapid pace for change, the need for change management, increased communications to adapt to these changes and the quick drop in costs. All makes for interesting Strategic Planning Sessions, Succession Management issues, evaluation of skills and Visioning exercises.

Enjoy the article link below to an expanded view of some of these topics:

Mixed Results as Google Enters Microsoft’s Turf

Sales Characteristics for Success that are innate?

A recent article by Dr. Croner, indicates that most high performance sales people possess the following 3 innate personality traits which only about 20% of Sales people have. They are:

Need for Achievement
Competitiveness
Optimism

Personally, from experience, most people possess these, so it is doubtful that they are innate!

In an earlier blog article that was written based on Harvard Research, it was identified that "Challengers" created the most effective sales people, and these techniques can be learned. Obviously, some people may be more comfortable with these techniques than others, but if a person is committed, they can "flex" into the needs of the position, and over time they become engrained in the individual and drives success.

Existing Sales People in your organization present the greatest challenge because you have already employed them and the question then remains how do you, or can you, elevate them to be more effective? But the advantage is you have more information about them based around Thinking, and Behavioral traits and Interests, than you may have for people you may be looking to recruit or hire.

For an existing sales force, can you identify what generates a passion or a significant need which can drive the Need for Achievement within a person? It may take some effort, but from experience, most of the time it can be found. Then the objective is tapping into this internal "need" that this person has and structuring a compensation/benefit plan around this (these) needs.

Competitiveness can be created on some level. However, it is critical that this is created in a supportive manner and environment. Humans naturally are competitive, just look at the world problems which seem to revolved around the need to be heard or recognized.

Optimism, can also be addressed or taught. There are many methods which can be employed to change how a person views change and challenges, from meditation to structured courses.

So the objective is with existing Sales people, how to motivate the engage them to the point of wanting to grow and become more effective and professional. It may take effort, coaching/mentoring and involves some training costs, but it can be achieved. It favorably impacts company morale.

For Pre-Hire/Recruiting, there are effective assessments/tests and interview techniques to evaluate candidates by helping to minimize hiring the wrong people initially.  Obviously, the benchmarks need to be created around your Top Performers. Once these are set-up, then an in-depth interview(s) can help enormously in identifying people who should be successful.

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) can help in the process by "self-selecting" out people that will not have a good "job fit" based around initial knockout questions, and then around benchmarks/performance models. These ATS systems also need to be used to help identify effective marketing programs in attracting the best candidates not only initially, but those who will remain with your company(retention). These ATS systems can greatly save time and effort for your recruiting staff and generally can be easily cost justified around ROI's. This "tracking" information is critical for future hiring programs to attract the best talent.

The more tools and methodologies you use, the greater your success can be. Hire around "job fit" and you gain the slight edge in being a successful and sustainable organization!

Different Selling Techniques - Challengers vs Relationship Builders, vs Lone Wolves vs Hard Workers vs Reactive Problem Solvers

 A recent article in Harvard's Business Review came out with an interesting study. They found that "Challengers" out performed the other forms of selling techniques or individuals. Why? Because they push the client to better understand the products being offered and their use. They are particularly effective in "down economies."

"Challengers" tailor their presentations and information in a teaching way, even showing new ways to use the information/products in a more effective manner or in specific situations that the client had not identified that they needed. They also take control of the sale and the customer needs identification and challengers are into solution-selling.

The question needs to be asked, where does your sales force fit into these classifications? Most likely you have a mixture of styles. Maybe there is a need to hire differently than we have in the past? Through change management techniques and training sales forces, they can be up-graded to handle more complex sales situations which the global marketplace is forcing us to adjust to.

It can be argued, that certain clients may respond to one type better than another. But this article begs the question that companies may need to have more Challengers and fewer Relationship Builders.

Enjoy the article!

Selling Is Not About Relationships

9:29 AM Friday September 30, 2011
by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson

This post, the first of a four-part series, is also part of the HBR Insight Center Growing the Top Line.
Ask any sales leader how selling has changed in the past decade, and you'll hear a lot of answers but only one recurring theme: It's a lot harder. Yet even in these difficult times, every sales organization has a few stellar performers. Who are these people? How can we bottle their magic?
To understand what sets apart this special group of sales reps, the Sales Executive Council launched a global study of sales rep productivity three years ago involving more than 6,000 reps across nearly 100 companies in multiple industries.
We now have an answer, which we've captured in the following three insights:
1. Every sales professional falls into one of five distinct profiles.
Quantitatively speaking, just about every B2B sales rep in the world is one of the following types, characterized by a specific set of skills and behaviors that defines the rep's primary mode of interacting with customers:

• Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the customer organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet customers' every need, and work hard to resolve tensions in the commercial relationship.
• Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They'll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team.
• Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the sales force who do things their way or not at all.
• Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the customers' standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on post-sales follow-up, ensuring that service issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly.
• Challengers use their deep understanding of their customers' business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. They're not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — with both their customers and bosses.

2. Challengers dramatically outperform the other profiles, particularly Relationship Builders.
When we look at average reps, we find a fairly even distribution across all five of these profiles. But while there may be five ways to be average, there's only one way to be a star. We found that Challenger reps dominate the high-performer population, making up close to 40% of star reps in our study.

What makes the Challenger approach different?
The data tell us that these reps are defined by three key capabilities:
Challengers teach their customers. They focus the sales conversation not on features and benefits but on insight, bringing a unique (and typically provocative) perspective on the customer's business. They come to the table with new ideas for their customers that can make money or save money — often opportunities the customer hadn't realized even existed.
Challengers tailor their sales message to the customer They have a finely tuned sense of individual customer objectives and value drivers and use this knowledge to effectively position their sales pitch to different types of customer stakeholders within the organization.
Challengers take control of the sale. While not aggressive, they are certainly assertive. They are comfortable with tension and are unlikely to acquiesce to every customer demand. When necessary, they can press customers a bit — not just in terms of their thinking but around things like price.
We'll discuss each of these capabilities in more depth in our upcoming posts, but just as surprising as it is that Challengers win, it's almost more eye-opening who loses. In our study, Relationship Builders come in dead last, accounting for only 7% of all high performers.
Why is this? It's certainly not because relationships no longer matter in B2B sales--that would be a naïve conclusion. Rather, what the data tell us is that it is the nature of the relationships that matter. Challengers win by pushing customers to think differently, using insight to create constructive tension in the sale. Relationship Builders, on the other hand, focus on relieving tension by giving in to the customer's every demand. Where Challengers push customers outside their comfort zone, Relationship Builders are focused on being accepted into it. They focus on building strong personal relationships across the customer organization, being likable and generous with their time. The Relationship Builder adopts a service mentality. While the Challenger is focused on customer value, the Relationship Builder is more concerned with convenience. At the end of the day, a conversation with a Relationship Builder is probably professional, even enjoyable, but it isn't as effective because it doesn't ultimately help customers make progress against their goals.
This finding — that Challengers win and Relationship Builders lose — is one that sales leaders often find deeply troubling, because their organizations have placed by far their biggest bet on recruiting, developing, and rewarding Relationship Builders, the profile least likely to win.
Here's how one of our members in the hospitality industry put it when he saw these results: "You know, this is really hard to look at. For the past 10 years, it's been our explicit strategy to hire effective Relationship Builders. After all, we're in the hospitality business. And, for a while, that approach worked well. But ever since the economy crashed, my Relationship Builders are completely lost. They can't sell a thing. And as I look at this, now I know why."
3. Challengers dominate the world of complex "solution-selling"
Given the first two findings, it might be reasonable to conclude that Challengers are the down-economy reps and that when things return to normal, Relationship Builders will once again prevail. But our data suggest that this is wishful thinking.
When we cut the data by complexity of sale — that is, separating out transactional, product-selling reps from complex, solution-selling reps — we find that Challengers absolutely dominate as selling gets more complex. Fully 54% of all star reps in a solution-selling environment are Challengers. At the same time, Relationship Builders fall off the map almost entirely, representing only 4% of high-performing reps in complex environments.
Put differently, Challengers win because they've mastered the complex sale, not because they've mastered a complex economy. Your very best sales reps — the ones who carried you through the downturn — aren't just the top performers of today but the top performers of tomorrow, as they are far better able to drive sales and deliver customer value in any kind of economic environment. For any company on a journey from selling products to selling solutions — which is a migration that more than 75% of the companies I work with say they are pursuing — the Challenger selling approach represents a dramatically improved recipe for driving top-line growth.
In the next post, we'll look at how Challengers teach their customers and how leading companies are equipping their salespeople to do the same.

Selling Is Not About Relationships 

A recent article by Wharton about Steve Jobs

In a recent article entitled: "Life after Steve Jobs: What to Expect from the Next Generation at Apple" it discusses the challenges to Apple after Steve Jobs' passing. It explains the culture at Apple being a "high risk endeavor" as it is more controlling than it's competitors, which requires Apple's products to be "truly superior." While Apple and Pixar have been consistently successful in this approach, the question now is, can they continue to do this over the long term, or will the culture need to undergo some changes?


Therefore, the risks are much higher for Apple than for say, for Microsoft, Google or even Facebook. The question is what happens now that the "one person Visionary" has passed, and it will now become an amalgam of a team Vision?


Innovation will need to continue to be a key to success or else the strategy and team may need to change. Senior Management will definitely have it's challenges. Only time will play it's cards out....but the World will anxiously await to see the next products from the crucible of Apple and Pixar. Wouldn't we like to be a fly on the wall during the upcoming Strategic and Succession Planning sessions? What do you think will be the in the companies' futures, both shorter term and long term? The game will be an interesting one, to say the least.


Link to the article:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2859

Innovation and Visioning in the 20th and 21st Century

In the earlier blog posting, below( http://executiveandhrguidance.blogspot.com/2011/10/innovation-in-21st-century-and-steve.html ), Steve Jobs was described as a visionary and futurist. He took ideas and morphed them, using newer technology, slimmer packaging, modernizing the appearance of an item, and/or recognizing there was a need (recognized or hidden) which could be addressed. Through his charisma and communication he could open new markets or grow existing markets at a much faster pace than had happened earlier.

In the 1950's NASA started designing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Space programs around concepts that did not exist at the time. NASA helped to fuel innovation and new products by committing to a need in the near or foreseeable future by agreeing to purchase those items once they were developed within established time-frames.

The US Air Force did the same thing when they started conceptualizing the C-5A Galaxy(Lockheed).  In this specific case, they identified the need to airlift large, heavy payloads long distances for what was called the Heavy Logistics Systems project. This aircraft was very sophisticated. It had multiple computer systems with backups, in case of inflight failure.

For example, at the time, if there was an error light, it would rank the probability of what was causing the error, the nearest location to land, the nearest place for obtaining a replacement part, and estimated downtime. Practically unheard of at that time, in the late 1960's.

Many of the advancements were never used because of  fear of a possible crash and  few simulators that could train pilots on it's use. The C-5 could land with cross-winds by heading into the wind, with the landing gear/wheels pointed in a different direction going down a runway.

Looking into the future and holding visioning exercises, helps organizations to remain flexible, with a view to change, while anticipating possible challenges and competitors, many which come sooner than expected. These exercises help to build teams while also coming up with new ideas or concepts that might not have been contemplated by the company, otherwise. They also contribute to the strategic plan and in many cases succession planning needs.

In spite of some saying that things change too fast to really plan, because the plan is outdated before it is written, they overlook the benefits in building more dynamic, cooperative, and communicative organizations while improving morale, engagement and the strong possibilities of identifying innovative or improved processes or products/services.

Shouldn't your organization contemplate visioning sessions? If not, why not?

Innovation in the 21st Century and Steve Jobs

Everyone has blogged and posted about Steve Jobs and his life these past few days, as well as highlight his contribution to everyday life through innovation and technology, so I won't be that much different except to possibly add some slightly different slants.

The most common phase it seems, is in describing what he did: "he knew what people wanted before they themselves knew it," or words to that effect. Another way to look at this, is that he recognized technology and components that existed, and was able to refine and redeploy technology in fulfillment of people's needs (expressed and unrealized). (More on this topic in future blog postings.)

After all, in more recent years, the music player pre-existed the iPod, smart phones existed and were in use for 20 years before the launch of the iPhone, and tablet PC's were marketed for many years before the iPad. But he added the pizzazz, as some call it the "sizzle" to the steak, the manifestation of dreams and a vision on how to use them more effectively. He was a master communicator and futurist.

When the Apple Computer was first introduced, we would ask questions in stores as to what could be done with it and how could it be used. These were questions that persisted for many years after that, especially as to why many would want their own personal computer for home use. Frankly, it didn't do much for improving our lives at home at that time because of the lack of programs.

In business, computers allowed the quick computations of complex items and spreadsheets that we had to use in planning and budgeting(as a simple example), so it helped to eliminate the drudgery of recalculating the numbers down and over, and especially if a manager wanted to change a single number or numbers to see the effect, or to "finalize" the budget. Of course, it never seemed to reach this final stage of setting something in stone. There was always one more tweak, or then there were monthly or bi-weekly forecasts against budget, or against re-forecast or the projection. You get the idea.

Jobs' reluctance to open up the source code so that more programs could be written to appeal to larger audiences and uses, restricted the growth of Apple products compared to the MS DOS/PC system, and it's acceptance and use in business. As a result, the Apple Computer never reached more than about 5% market share, it seems. (Presently the new OS systems has about 10% market share.) This caused the early departure of Steve Jobs from Apple, which is referred to in the Commencement speech he made in 2005 at Stanford. The link is below.

There is no question that he was a visionary, a change manager, and an extremely effective leader, because you can't grow businesses to the size he did in the period of time he did, multiple times, without being an excellent leader. We will probably see projects that he initiated over the next several years that are in the incubation phase right now. The question will be sustainability of the company over the long term. Only time will tell.

It is a great loss to American Business, in particular, and to those of us who use these products and appreciate what he has contributed to global societies and employment, as well as enjoyment. However, he realized that we all pass, and others will fill these voids.

The only question is how much larger a contribution could he have made had he been receptive to opening up the source codes and allowing greater access and development around the Apple products? We will never know, but it is a question that begs to be asked!

If you haven't watched the Commencement Address, you should. Just click on the link below.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address June 12, 2005: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

15+ minutes in length ; "stay hungry, stay foolish"
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.

How much information do you Share with employees and how much should you?

The article who's link is below, brought to mind numerous issues on this topic. First, to be clear, transparency is good, but at times too much transparency may not be. It is finding the balance and evaluating the issues involved, which determine how much information to give out. The ramifications can be far reaching and should not be taken lightly.

Two cases in point based on real situations in my past experience:

1) A senior executive who was a country/regional manager was going to be relieved of his responsibilities. His replacement was en-route to the country to inform him, and take over the position....he passed away on the plane. The company did not have anyone else with the right experience to replace the country/regional manager. As it turned out he was never replaced, and in fact was moved back to corporate headquarters and retired as a Senior Executive VP.

Imagine if the Senior Executive would have known that he was going to be replaced? We would have lost an excellent executive or, had he known he was to be relieved, he might have soon moved to another company or had bad morale. As it turned out, it worked out well for both parties.

So not having total transparency might have been the best policy in this case. You decide.

2) We were a major producer of a commodity chemical. We had gone to the industry we were supplying and asked for increases in prices and volumes in order to help us stay in business. This was being driven by regulations and new regulations that were to be imposed on manufacturers in the State in question. Our customers weren't responsive or receptive to our proposal. Consequently, it was decided that we would shut down the plant due to environmental costs which were prohibitive and with impending additional regulations and required investments, the product line would not be able to obtain a return sufficient to make the hurdle rates required.

Being a responsible supplier, we went to our customers and informed them that we would provide adequate product for a year so that they could slowly replace our supply with other supplier's product. We would keep our employees for the year to operate the plant.

We just wanted our customers to know so that there would not be a disruption in supply when we shut down. Within less than 6 months, we had no sales and had to shut down much sooner than we had expected. This negatively affected our employees sooner than might have been the case, had we not informed our customers of our intentions. As a result our employees had to look for new positions sooner than anyone expected.

So transparency in this case may not have been the best approach, at least to give customers this much lead-time. You decide.

How Much Information Do You Share with Employees?:
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/how-much-information-do-you-share-with-employees/?ref=business

Leadership Charisma and Engagment: Presentation given August 26, 2011

Leadership Charisma: Linking People, Strategy and Performance to Engagement and Training: "Revolutionary Research from Global Corporations" is a presentation I gave at the HR & Training Congress held in Ortigas, MetroManila, Philippines on August 25-26, 2011.

The material presented was based around recent research on Leadership and in particular Charisma that has been released by Profiles International in January 2011 and documented in the book Leadership Charisma, currently 115^th on Amazon’s Best Seller’s List.

 Leadership Charisma eBook at Amazon.com


This startling research can tie people, strategy and performance to heightened Workplace Engagement, resulting in increased: Retention, Sales, and Profitability. The key is that the research dispels the myth that Charisma is only innate. Charisma can be learned and is based on over 40,000 Leaders and 400,000 people who rated these leaders.

The presentation was broken into 4 sections: Engagement (what it means to an organization), Leadership (and it's importance to an organization), Leadership Charisma (the conclusion of the research from the book) and the results of the research which leads to Training/Learning that can be held within a company.


If interested in receiving a copy of the presentation, please contact me or leave a comment and I will be happy to send you what was presented or click on this Link to view some of the slides:
Presentation on Engagement and Leadership Charisma

Interpersonal skills, Adaptability, Team leadership and bottom-line results drive personal success

The attached article does a nice job of summarizing middle management and senior management required skills, and needs for personal success.

Adjusting to change, which each and every person, company and organization faces regularly, especially if they are looking to grow and remain dynamic in the ever changing economic climates within countries and even local regional economies, is a key component to organizational and personal success. The reference to Organizational Culture in the article, indirectly relates to Pre-Hire competencies before On-Boarding, and Competencies for a specific position, especially as it relates to "Job Fit and Company Fit." If assessments and succession planning tools and systems do not have the ability to identify competencies for good job fit, then filling positions and promotion, is mostly based on "gut instinct," some past performance criteria, and arbitrary factors,which are not necessarily the strongest ways to build a business in today's world.

As has been well documented in the past couple of decades, about 90% of a person's Thinking Style, Behaviors and Interests are hidden from immediate view and only become partially visible over time. Today's assessments can help to identify this "submerged/hidden" portion, subject of course to validation, making it much easier to identify competencies of success along with "Benchmarking/Job Pattern/Competency Models" for that position and thus people who are more likely to succeed in a given position. Why place a person in a situation with a high probability of failure because they may lack the correct interpersonal skills or adaptability that may be needed? Normally there are many other opportunities within an organization, regardless of size, where the person can thrive and contribute, but the right tools are needed to help HR, management and organizations to identify the right Job Fit or Job Match and to establish a good succession plan.

Leadership and Communication skills can also be identified through 360 Reviews and assessments, and should be used at least yearly if not more often. 360 Reviews properly done, can clearly target competencies and skills, while identifying developmental areas for individuals, as well as for organizations. These skills can be learned, hence training can be effective where and when needed.

All of this leads to bottom-line results; and, where proper KRA's are established, these results can be tracked to individual performance and personal success.
Wall Street Journal Article:
Interpersonal skills, Adaptability, Team Leadership and bottom-line results.

Objective of this blog

The objective of this blog is to provide CEOs, Senior Executives and Human Resource (HR) Managers, ideas and methods to increase: engagement, productivity, retention, and profitability for organizations and  their employees. These can apply most times to Non-Profit organizations also.

This blog is based on 35+ years with Fortune 100, and SME's (both public and private), as well as Turnaround and Change Management experience, actual present-day field observations and data, as well as current research, published and unpublished.