Companies in Transition

                                                                                          November 2006

Dear Friend,

    This issue of “Companies in Transition” focuses on the importance of people in improving business performance. Without good people, the best strategy in the world is not likely to be successful. On the other hand, a committed team of strong, smart people can often overcome defects in the business strategy as well as navigate the inevitable impediments to successful strategy execution. Business plans are like battle plans. Paraphrasing a famous German general, “no business plan ever survives contact with the marketplace.” It’s what your people do next that makes all the difference.

    We hope you enjoy this issue of “Companies in Transition.” Best wishes for a safe and restful Thanksgiving Holiday!

Wayne Wilson

10 Ways to Improve Your People-Effectiveness

By Wayne Wilson

    When we think of improving business performance, numerous questions come to mind, such as

• Do we have the right strategy?
• Are we focused on the appropriate market opportunities?
• Do we have effective sales processes?
• Do we have effective business processes to deliver the products or services that Sales promised to the customer?
• Do we have an efficient capital structure sufficient to support our business processes?
• Can we deliver improved value to our owners or shareholders?

    The clear common dominator across all these issues is that they must be determined and implemented by individuals.  Who are these people?  What should they have in terms of education, skills and organizational fit?  Where do we find them?  How can we recruit them?  How can we retain them?  How can we ensure they will perform to our expectations?

    Over the years, I have probably spent more time dealing with “people issues” than any other area of business management. Based on that experience, here are ten ways to improve your people-effectiveness:

Do You Have a Master Mind Alliance?

    When Napoleon Hill asked the great steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, “To what sir do you owe your success?” Carnegie immediately responded, “I owe it all to my master mind alliance.” (emphasis added)  Carnegie continued, “I personally know almost nothing about the making and marketing of steel, but in my employ are men who know everything there is to know about the making and marketing of steel.”

    Much of Hill’s research organizing the world’s first philosophy of success centered on the effective use of “master mind alliances” by the great success stories of his day including Carnegie, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, among many others.

    A master mind alliance involves gathering around you a group of like-minded people, sharing similar aims and aspirations, who can help you to achieve your own goals. Such an alliance may be as formal as a board of directors or as informal as regularly confiding in and seeking counsel from a spouse or other close acquaintance. A group of people regularly and intently focused on solving problems and achieving specific goals will usually produce better ideas and plans, leading to better outcomes, than any single person acting alone.

    It’s a clear manifestation of the old saying “two [or three or four] heads are better than one.”

    When Napoleon Hill asked the great steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, “To what sir do you owe your success?” Carnegie immediately responded, “I owe it all to my master mind alliance.” (emphasis added)  Carnegie continued, “I personally know almost nothing about the making and marketing of steel, but in my employ are men who know everything there is to know about the making and marketing of steel.”

    Much of Hill’s research organizing the world’s first philosophy of success centered on the effective use of “master mind alliances” by the great success stories of his day including Carnegie, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, among many others.

    A master mind alliance involves gathering around you a group of like-minded people, sharing similar aims and aspirations, who can help you to achieve your own goals. Such an alliance may be as formal as a board of directors or as informal as regularly confiding in and seeking counsel from a spouse or other close acquaintance. A group of people regularly and intently focused on solving problems and achieving specific goals will usually produce better ideas and plans, leading to better outcomes, than any single person acting alone.

    It’s a clear manifestation of the old saying “two [or three or four] heads are better than one.”

Coaching for Success

    Owner/CEOs of companies in transition often seem to struggle with coaching employees to perform at the higher levels necessary for sustainable business performance improvement. The challenge can be even greater if the employee is a newly hired executive from outside the company or a young manager recently promoted to his/her first managerial position.

    In response to one recent client situation, I suggested the following approach to the owner/CEO - treat frequent, regular one-on-one meetings as coaching sessions like timeout huddles in basketball:

1. Review the numbers

2. Talk about what is going well

3. Talk about what needs more attention / change / etc.

4. Ask about any particular issues where your help is needed

5. Ask about other things that he/she is working on / worrying about

6. Constantly check to be sure that the two of you "are on the same page."

    I refer to this as the “no daylight (between you) style of management."  Establishing  a regular somewhat-structured, but not rigid, communication process will help to improve the effectiveness  of your interactions with  key managers and employees.