Consider all the companies you know who have issued “layoffs” over the past several years.  Think through the stories you’ve heard at dinner parties or around barbeques about how the poorest performers were cut first - the “C” player slough that most employees were amazed still had a job.  Next came marginal contributors, the “B” players who made a bit of difference in the organization.  Finally, “A” Players began to disappear as companies “cut to the bone” to stay alive.

For many companies, only this last round, layoffs of the A Players, were true layoffs where the company had intent to recall these key resources.  The first two rounds were “layoffs” of the “wink and a nod” flavor as if to hint the unspeakable: Thank you for your service, which wasn’t that good to begin with, and thank goodness for this recession, because now when we’re ready to rebuild, we won’t be stuck doing it with you. Good bye, and good luck.

Speaking of luck, as the recession is continuing to ease, it’s time for you to wade into this sea of humanity and hire. 

As you do, how are you going to make sure that you find hiring treasure in that sea of resumes, instead of winding up with a “C” of another flavor?  Here are the Four Laws of Recruiting Success I advocate to find top talent:

Law #1: Define the Position with Crystal Clarity
Por favor, repita: “A job advertisement IS NOT THE SAME THING as defining expectations for the position.”  Also, “It’s not fair to expect what you haven’t yet defined.”

Sometimes it feels like I’m speaking a different language when I stress this, but I hope you understand that a “job posting” (advertisement) is primarily a marketing tool to get potential candidates excited about the company and the position.  By contrast, a “Position Description” is a formal management document which clarifies joint expectations about the position and its performance, and by which an employee’s performance can be judged.

At minimum, it should include: 1) a statement of how the position provides value to the organization, 2) listing of accountabilities, 3) performance metrics against which the position will be measured, 4) experience level requirements, and 5) working conditions.

This is a critical tool to walk through with any semi-final or finalist candidate – as well as any employee to whom you haven’t yet provided such information – to ensure that they have an accurate understanding of what you mean by the position and what it takes to be successful.

Law #2: Identify Success
Speaking of success, a best practice that I insist on with my clients is to take the time to define what is required of a candidate for maximal success.  Usually, those who manage the position, report to it, cooperate with it, or have performed it in the past can provide expert information in this regard.

But I don’t mean “experience” for success.  I haven’t found too many hiring managers that aren’t smart enough to hire people with job-related experience… who still don’t “succeed” in the position and end up terminated.

I mean job-related attributes a candidate must have in addition to smarts and experience in order to truly succeed in the company and the position.  There are four we routinely examine:

1. Competencies, or, what general skills (e.g. “Self Management” vs. “Presentation Skills”) are necessary to perform well at this position. 
2. Behaviors, such as how a candidate approaches problem solving, interacts with people, deals with policies, and works within systems.
3. Motivators, including a candidate’s need for authority vs. a motivation to make money.
4. Acumen, such as how a candidate makes decisions about themselves and the world around them.

While the examples within each of the four categories above are just the tip of the iceberg, taking the time to think about your positions in this light can open the door to radically more productive interview questions.  And if you want to speed the process of finding the best candidates, assessment systems abound to help you pinpoint the above.

Law #3: Process of Transparency
This is my favorite rule, and why I prefer to recruit only for consulting clients where I know the organization. 

Everything about a good process is designed to take down defenses on all sides immediately.  The sooner that happens, the sooner the truth comes out – truth about the candidates, the truth about the company.

My two favorite tools for making that happen are:

• Video Interviewing.  Types and flavors are varied, but when I use it, the goal is to give the company a sense of how the candidate would solve a real issue.  En vogue now, video interviewing is something I’ve incorporated for years, resulting in faster and more accurate yes/no decisions.
• Assessments.  Mentioned above, assessments are great for more than pinpointing whether the candidate is right for the job.  They also help the candidate decide the reverse: whether the job is right for the candidate, and who wants an employee that doesn’t like their job?  Most of all, used properly, these tools help all involved drop defenses and know each other much faster.  The result is more time is spent talking about more critical issues related to the job and the company’s future.

These tools help both sides move rapidly into conversations that matter in determine whether the opportunity is a mutual match.

Law #4: Multi-Point Mutual Match
And that match should be multi-point.

I find best results happen when the following stars align:

1. Pre-Screening Match – I always get any critical questions like pay requirements, relevant required experience, etc., answered affirmatively in writing by candidates up front.  Any unexplained or out-of-bounds changes in answers are sufficient grounds for disqualification.
2. Resume Match - The candidate need not have done this precise job before, but they have experience that makes them prepared and trainable to superior performance.
3. Fit to the Job – It’s one thing to assess candidates as described above.  It’s quite another to assess the job itself and have a well-defined picture of the attributes the job requires for success, and then to compare finalists to the job.  This resulting “gap analysis” is quite a compelling tool in identifying who not only has good experience, but the best fit for your culture and the actual demands of your position.

Of course there are more, but these are some of the key matches where I find I differ from most hiring managers, and where I find maximum improvement upon implementation.

Bonus Law – Law #5: Automate
If there’s one bonus I could leave you with, it’s one word: Automate.  There are three simple reasons why it’s inexcusable not to automate the above process as much as possible.

1. Reduce “fluff” applications. Have you had the experience of posting a job and being flooded with 150 resumes?  If not, your time will come.  My most recent recruitment re-confirmed that when I use recruitment automation, the bar to apply is raised high enough that as much as 50% of the “me too” applicants are weeded out.  I automatically get more serious applicants.
2. Built-in recorded, defensible process.  Do you suppose job applicants are feeling more or less sensitive toward bias and unfairness in the hiring process during times of higher unemployment?  Either way, the right automation makes following an EEOC and OFCCP compliant process easy, and transparently reassures applicants they’re in a fair system that wants to make sure they’ll enjoy the position as much as it seeks to make sure they’re right for the job.
3. Save time = Save money.  What if you could cut as much as 75% of your staff’s time spent reviewing resumes, doing proper documentation (that you’re probably not doing now), and getting to a better hire?  That equals time and money.

 Finally, A Little Secret

In truth, if you stop and think about the hiring trap most good managers are in – hiring for experience and firing for bad attitude, lack of fit, and poor execution – the recession doesn’t matter.  Most have been caught up in this hiring trap all along.

But as I said at the beginning, “A good recession is a terrible thing to waste!” 

So if I can use it to call attention to this opportunity, to make known that there is a better way to hire no matter the season and the conditions, then my purpose here is met.

A hazard of my profession is that I see exceptional service often – exceptionally good and exceptionally bad.  And when that happens, I take time to say something about both.  I’ve arranged commendations for truck drivers, gotten TSA agents removed and retrained, called the State Patrol to report the State Patrol, and written raving reviews about Delta Air Lines agents in the past, to name a few.

This time, though, this case study about Delta Air Lines isn’t nearly so positive.

For this case study, I’ll lay out in bullet-point order the experience my wife and I shared on our Jan. 2nd flight from Houston returning to Seattle, connecting through Detroit.  First, I will simply lay out what happened, leaning on you to begin sorting out what you believe is relevant and not relevant to the case study.  I’ll declare up front that my main focus here will be on employee actions and possible corrections; we won’t tackle everything along the way.

Your goal should be to spot where you think things went wrong, and how you would correct the situation if you were Delta management and had a magic wand.  At the end, I’ll give you my diagnosis and we’ll see how much you agree or disagree with me.  Along the way, be sure to look for issues and items that seem relevant to your own business.

Let me reveal one last bias up front: Delta is our airline of choice.  With my wife being from India, Delta has the best, most direct service from Seattle.  In fact, I  have $4,500 worth of Delta tickets to India in a saved itinerary that I haven’t purchased yet.  That reminds me: The air crew are fond of reminding us we have a choice when we fly.  After you read this, perhaps you’ll also have an opinion of whether I should give Delta that $4,500.

The Facts

• Our entire itinerary was booked through Delta.com, including the tight 45 minute, same-terminal connection in Detroit.
• As the flight to Detroit was a regional jet, gate crew made plane side checking of carry-ons mandatory.  Air crew then overruled gate crew and began bringing a select few bags on board, but did so with no consideration for passengers with tight connections.  My wife’s bag got plane-side checked.
• The flight from Houston to Detroit was delayed, arriving 34 minutes late.  (The Detroit loop had been behind all day, with one flight cancelled.)  Connection time now: 11 minutes.
• Passengers gathered in and clogged the jetway, waiting for plane-side checked bags.  A few other passengers struggled to get through the crowd.  As compared to other Delta flights, it was immediately clear that the gate area was not under control.
• I took shelter (read: was pushed) in the operator’s bay for the jetway, where I noticed that the key to the jetway was in the switch and left in the on position.  Good thing I didn’t accidently bump the controls in the jostling.
• One passenger repeatedly exited the jetway onto the landing leading to the stairs to the tarmac, begging for, looking for, and reaching around for his child’s stroller.
• Bag retrieved, we fought our way through the sizeable, uncontrolled crowd and up the ramp.

For the next facts, I need to switch to dialog as best I recorded it in notes made after the incident:

• Delta Pilot – At top of the ramp, a Delta Pilot gives up after waiting 20 minutes to have his credentials checked and walks past the gate agent and enters the jetway, passing to my left headed toward the plane.  Stops on my left as he gets yelled at.
• Gate Agent – Entering jetway from the right, stepping in front of me, blocking my path, literally yelling at at Pilot through me, “Hey, you can’t go down there yet!”
• Me – “Excuse me,” trying to get around her [Gate Agent].
• Pilot – Yelling back, “I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes!”
• Me – Still trying to clear agent. Frustrated to be stuck in an argument I’m not a party to.
• Gate Agent - Loud, almost yelling (still through me) - “It doesn’t matter.  You can’t go anywhere until I check… (something else but I cut her off)”
• Me – Now also loud – not escalating, but matching the Gate Agent in an attempt to get her to stop ignoring me – “And I can’t make my connection if you won’t get out of the way.”
• Gate Agent – Still just as loud, but at least she’s finally communicating with me.  And still blocking me  - “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to him (the pilot).”
• Me - “And I’m talking to you. We’re all trying to make connections and you’re in the way,” during which Gate Agent finally steps aside (to the right instead of left toward the Pilot).  Incident should now be over.
• Gate Agent -  Incident not over. Steps back in front of me, announcing, “I’m going to call the Sherriff and you can talk to him about that.”
• Pilot – Was left in the secure area, still unchecked, by the Gate Agent as she went to call the Sherriff.
• Me – With the Gate Agent finally out of the way, I and all the passengers stacked up behind the “Gate Agent–Me–Pilot” jetway cluster were finally able to leave.
• Gate Agent – Yelled a request that I sit and wait for the Sherriff as I left with everyone else.
• Me – Continued to leave.  Clearly felt unsafe approaching Gate Agent to request her information to file complaint.

Final Facts

• We saw from the walkway that the Pilot finally got his credentials checked once the Gate Agent got off the phone.
• Our flight to Seattle closed as we got to the gate.  But the gate agent there was a manager and re-opened the door.
• Identifying himself as a manager, he promised to contact me with the information about the offending gate agent so I could follow-up with Delta.  I’ve never heard back.
• Our flight to Seattle landed on time… minus our bags.  They arrived a day later.

 What’s Not Relevant

Ok, now that the facts are displayed in all their bloody glory, let’s dismiss a few items from consideration before we look at the real issues.

• The flight to Detroit was late.  These things happen.  If you can’t handle late flights and missed connections once in a while you’re a new or holiday-only traveler.  Suck it up.
• No bags on arrival.  Again, this is a yawner to me, especially during the holidays.  Plus they were delivered intact one day later.
• Plane-side checking of carry-ons.  I’m sure my wife will disagree with this one, and others will say that preference really ought to be given to putting bags on the plane for those with tight connections.  I simply don’t see the practicality in this.  We’re talking about a full flight on a regional jet with small bins that can’t handle regulation-size carry-ons.  Frustrating?  Yes, especially on a tight connection.  But a relative non-issue.

And What of My Behavior?

Before we get to the Delta Airlines staff involved, let’s consider me.  Did my behavior warrant a call to the Sherriff?

Could I have picked any of a number of other behaviors in an attempt to extract myself from the middle of someone else’s argument, and to stop from being yelled through?  Of course!  There are always options… and I encourage you to firmly remember that the next time a rampaging gate agent is literally yelling through your head right after you’ve been pushed around on a crowded walkway that makes a teenager’s rave dance party look tame.

But is it now illegal to not want to be accidentally caught in the middle of someone else’s quarrel?  To not want to be included in an argument-cum-investigation you’re not a party to?  And to take issue with being ignored in your attempt to remove yourself – and your fellow passengers - from that situation?

Is escalation to law enforcement warranted when 1) no request was made of me, 2) no command given to me, and 3) no threat made by me?  Is it an offense, after first asking nicely, to match the offensive Gate Agent’s intensity in an attempt to get her to no longer ignore my attempts to leave and take a plane full of people with me?  Or is this some new Gate Agent training technique that it’s okay to refer matters to law enforcement when you simply don’t like someone’s attitude and elect to ignore the rest of your job  (i.e. being of basic courteous service to them by not blocking exits)?

By my way of thinking, to be fully honest and truthful in her call to the Sherriff, the Gate Agent’s call absolutely had to sound something like this:

“Hello, Sherriff?  I just left an unidentified pilot who breached a secure area in that secure area in order to call you and report that a passenger who was completely uninvolved in that incident and whose exit path I blocked as I argued with the pilot just had the nerve to interrupt my argument.”

Despite that being the absolute 100% absurd truth, I sincerely doubt that’s what she said.

So what do you think – book me, Danno?

Now, The Good Stuff

So what did you spot that you had a problem with, and why was it a problem?  Let’s tackle that first.  Next, we’ll talk about what to do with the people involved.

• Inappropriate Escalation. 
  It is clear that the Gate Agent has had some form of training in dealing with tough situations because she applied some basic techniques.  1) She removed herself from the situation; 2) She utilized a higher escalation point; and 3) She knew to request me to wait for the Sherriff but not to order me to wait or to stop me from leaving as to do either could open liability for her and/or Delta.However, there are basic problems with any escalation and the escalation she chose in particular.

  First, there was zero need to escalate.  All she had to do was clear a safe path for people to exit.  She and the pilot were effectively blocking the exit, in itself creating an unsafe condition.  Solution: Simply step to the left side of the walkway where the pilot was instead of talking through me.  Better solution: remove the pilot from the secure area.  That she didn’t see any of a number of simpler solutions available and instead chose an argumentative path, escalating needlessly, combined with the other chaos in the gate area is a strong indicator that her personal stress limits were exceeded and she needed relief or simply to be relieved.

  Second, she had no legitimate cause of action yet cloaked herself in the protection of the Sherriff, threatening my liberties.  Training that she obviously has not had is that she needs to be very careful prior to threatening anyone’s liberties without very strong and fully truthful grounds for doing so; a flimsy or false attempt could cause her personally and/or Delta to suffer liability under a variety protections.

• Lack of Situational Awareness. 
  The gate agent chastised the pilot in public, creating an inappropriate situation.  At the same time, she did not seem to recognize that delaying a pilot attempting to make up time on a delayed route was unacceptable.  She blocked numerous passengers from exiting the walkway.  She had no apparent realization that her jetway had unsafe groups of people gathering near the airplane.  In short, the entire gate area was clearly out of control and she did not seem fully aware of the ways.
• Stress Reaction. 
  The gate agent did not appear to be executing rational decision making.  She did not appear to have paused to assess service levels and plan for or request required/missing assistance.  She was actually executing decisions, out of stress, that were making marginal situations worse.
• Lack of Professionalism. 
  Regarding the Gate Agent, there are any number of ways to handle a disgruntled pilot rather than to yell at him – a professional colleague – in public.  Of course the same goes for the Pilot.  None of those ways include 1) ignoring a customer’s attempt to exit, 2) ignoring a customer’s request to exit, 3) yelling at/through/around a customer, or 4) threatening a customer without cause.
• Disregard for Security Protocols.
  Any Pilot knows better than to break security protocol when entering a secure area, no matter how long they’ve been ignored by the Gate Agent. But the Gate Agent, too, is at fault. While she was busy calling the Sherriff, she left the Pilot in the secure area; had she truly been that concerned, she would have removed him prior to calling… or called the Sherriff on him.  Additionally, had she maintained service levels discussed above, this entire incident would not have occurred.
• No gate personnel on the jetway. 
  This created an unsafe condition where people clustered waiting for bags and were pushing each other.  Generally, there is at least one gate personnel to help direct and control passengers.
• Lack of Control of Baggage Area. 
  The lone Delta staffer in the walkway, the baggage handler, did not have control of his own situation.  Had he, a passenger would not have joined him on the conveyor area more than three times.
• Active Jetway. 
  It’s hard to believe that in today’s hyper-conscious (overly so?) culture toward safety and security that the walkway controls would be left not only unsecured but activated.  The above clustering made this unsafe, as I discovered.

What to Do… What to Do?

So you’re Delta management and you receive a complaint letter from me with this blog attached (that’s true).  What do you do?  Here are a few things I’d suggest:

• Track down the parties involved and get their version.  No doubt it will be completely different than mine.  Granted, I do this for a living, but still, others will have their own perspectives.
• First, find the manager from our Seattle flight who promised to contact me with enough information to file a complaint against the Gate Agent and find out why that never happened.  That was a critical moment of customer service promise broken.
• Second, find the Pilot.  He has to receive a written warning for violation of security policies and any necessary retraining, no matter what we think of the Gate Agent.
• Third, find the baggage handler.  He, too, needs retraining on how to interact with passengers and how to stop unsafe behavior.
• Last but certainly not least, our Gate Agent genuinely needs help in a few areas: triaging/assessing service quality level across the entire gate area and when to call for backup; stress management training with a focus on lateral problem solving so that she sees other, simpler options besides escalation; the importance of proper escalation paths and the personal/corporate risks to inappropriate escalation.  This should be combined into a 90 day performance improvement plan and closely monitored after that.  And of course if any other complaints of threats by this Gate Agent have been made in the past year, she should be immediately terminated.

So What’s In It For You?

Think your business is completely different from the air travel business?  Think again.  Ask yourself these important questions:

• Disgruntled Customers.
  Granted, I wasn’t mad until the Gate Agent decided to call the Sherriff and I was already leaving, so this is a hypothetical.  But if you invite the public onto your premises, do your people have directions on what to do with irate customers?  When to escalate and to whom?  Do they know if they have the authority to call Police and under what circumstances?
• Hidden Levers in your business.
  That jetway was unlocked and active for anyone to move and do accidental or deliberate damage with.  Where are the “hidden levers” in your business?  Common examples today include unattended, unlocked computers, unsecured storage and server areas, weak network security, physical equipment that isn’t kept in good, safe repair.  It sounds too basic, but anytime you don’t have to take a special action to use something of yours, neither does someone else, and that’s risky.
• Stress Impacts Us Differently.
  For our Gate Agent, stress clouded her judgments, prevented her from seeing simpler lateral solutions, and degraded her performance against service levels.  Do you know how stress impacts each of your people and how to help them rebound?  Using our Success Insights line of behavioral instruments, we can tell when and how people’s behavior changes in reaction to stress, how performance might degrade, and what to do about it.
• So… What Are Your Service Measures?
  Above when discussing the Gate Agent’s performance, I said that she had not paused to consider service levels.  One way I can know this is because she kept a Pilot (presuming he’s telling the truth) waiting for 20 minutes.  What are the Service Level Measures – or Key Performance Indicators – for your business?  Here’s a hint, if you don’t have any, make some or contact me for help because you’re not yet getting the results out of your business that you could.

Oh Right, One Last Question

What about the $4,500 in tickets in that saved itinerary?  Do I give the business to Delta or go somewhere else?

Yes, I fully realize that there are different flavors and styles of innovation, some more aggressive than the next.  And I also realize that “innovation” is a term for whichever process you subscribe to by which you will bring about new outcomes, and can  be taught.  These factors do mean there is wide opportunity for a variety of people to participate in creating progress through innovation.

But I do not for a moment believe that the best and highest use of every individual is to innovate.  For that reason, it pains me to see the occasional client bullishly launch head-long into an innovation initiative with little or no thought to whether they have the right team in place with the wherewithal to carry out the effort.  It is as if the attitude is that innovation is something that modern, progressive companies do, “So we must, too.”

When companies don’t take time to build a quality innovative team, it’s not merely projects that fall victim.  The real victims are employees and shareholders.  Employees, because instead of getting more engaged as they ought, they end up completely disenfranchised and confused by an “innovative” project that probably should have never happened.  Shareholders, because by not taking the time to establish right resources – Management 101 – management planned failure in from the start.

As with any project (but I’d argue especially with innovation) before beginning it is absolutely critical to know the key attributes of your core team members so you can 1) play to strengths and 2) add the precise strengths you need to your team.  Three core attribute areas to review include Behaviors, Motivators, and Competencies.  Each can be precisely measured, and your team’s make-up well defined and tuned.  Consider each in terms of what would help vs. hinder your particular effort.

Begin With Behavior In Mind
Of course, Steven Covey said “Begin with the end in mind,” and if you do, the required behavior isn’t far off, is it?

Consider a couple behaviors that might be less than helpful to have in a member of your innovation team.  For example, if “adherence to policy” was the major behavioral driver for an individual, it’s easy to see how this individual might tend to get stuck in current policy rather than helping to define a new structure.

What about “competitiveness?” Would including a highly competitive person on your team work? For competitive team-based innovation, clearly.  For collaborative environments, though, how would you make best use of that competitive spirit (without ignoring it)?

Here are examples of a few behaviors that are often helpful for innovation organizations:

• Analyzing Information – Accurately recording and recalling information as required.
• Versatility – Adaptability to changing assignments, using multiple talents.
• Frequent interaction – Frequent collaboration and interaction with others, often interrupt driven.

What Motivates You?
It sounds like a job interview question and it’s something good to understand about your innovation team.

For example, what would you do if you knew the greatest motivator of one of your team members was “Attainment of personal power?” Or “Adhere to established principles for living?”  For your particular innovation project, are these motivations beneficial, or risks to progress?

By contrast, how interested would you be in knowing that your team members’ strongest motivators were:

• Being results-oriented; or
• Generating new ideas.

By taking Motivators into account, we can not only create a project team with the best chance of success, but avoid putting good people in unrewarding situations.

Name That Competency
Competency models of performance excellence are not new to either HR or Psychology (and can get quite unwieldy if you let them, so let’s not).  As with Behaviors and Motivators, my interest is in what happens when you involve someone in a project but don’t use their top competencies, as well as making sure that the correct competencies are present.

Consider the following Competencies:

• Understanding & Evaluating Others – Understanding the attitudes and feelings of others.
• Employee Coaching – Developing the professional growth of others.
• Empathy – Caring about and identifying with others.

It would be hard (for me) to argue that these competencies would detract from any project.  Yet a worthwhile question to ask is if you have a true expert focused in any of these areas, how will they best contribute?

Just a few key competencies to seek out might include:

• Futuristic Thinking
• Conceptual Thinking
• Problem Solving Ability
• Planning & Organizing

What’s The Point?
A client forwarded me an NPR article just the other day that talked about how people who went to preschool made better employees and were more successful (on average) than people who didn’t, and the reason was they had learned soft skills the non-preschool group hadn’t.

People are not all the same and it’s a fallacy – and disrespectful – to treat everyone like they are.  It’s a fallacy and a disservice to both employees and shareholders to drag teams optimistically and blindly into innovation projects expecting the best without first stacking employees with the right skills and stacking the project deck with the right people.

Behaviors can be measured.  Motivators can be measured.  Competencies can be measured.  Simply.  There is no reason not to discover and treat employees and new recruits as the valuable individuals they are and maximize your chances for success.  Your shareholders, your employees, and your future project success will thank you for it.

photo by Fotocromo

When Doug Fabick became the 4th generation owner of Fenton, MO-based Fabick CAT, a Caterpillar Tractor dealership, his father left him with one key piece of advice, “Build your team.” According to a Gallup Organization case study, heeding these words netted Doug a 600% return on investment.

• What they’re doing well in their job.
• What, specifically, they can change to do better.
• What is working well from their perspective.
• What they need in order to do better from their perspective.
• What specific things you both will work on for next time. Write these down.

• Create teams within departments, or cross-area “strike forces” for complex projects or your whole company if it’s small.
• Get involved.  Help the team identify one goal important to the company they can tackle.
• Mentor. Help the team create a plan for how to make the goal happen.
• Back away, but monitor.  As leaders emerge, let them take over.

What’s the difference between a business plan and strategic planning?

Answer:

To some, there’s no difference, and both play a critical role.  But to me, it’s a difference in focus between planning  and action and strategic plans are the better choice when the goal is to get out of the starting gate and win the race.

A full, formal business plan is great if you’re a start-up at square one, you’re going for funding or it’s a contractual mandate, or you’re at a major turning point. The process forces you to document more about your relationships, your market, and your operations than most of your competitors ever will.  But for most, making the plan ends up being the goal.

Consider strategic planning.  For most going concerns, what is incredibly helpful is to agree on what must be accomplished and to create a concrete action plan for doing so.  That process – of focusing in on top issues, opportunities, and action-oriented solutions – is why good strategic planning produces results here and now.  Here, the focus is action.

The new year is an excellent time to create strategic action but any time is great. For the simplest start, review each department or area of your business and identify no more than 3-4 issues to fix or things to capitalize on – items that, when accomplished, would definitely make this year measurably better than the prior year.

For each, create a plan and assign an owner and due date to literally every task.  Here’s the kicker: make a commitment to get it
done, and keep your promise.

Follow this simple to say but magical method and you’ll have accomplished more in a more purposeful fashion and gotten better results before the ink on your competitor’s formal business plan is dry.


Free Guide: Action Planning Step-by-Step

Quickly and painlessly identify your most impactful issues and craft action plans using our step-by-step process.

Download your personalized report and action planning guide you can use to improve your the performance of your business.

In a press release on 9/14/2010, IBM announced that a six company alliance lead by IBM will launch an initiative known as “Supplier Connection” in the first quarter of 2011, opening the doors of these companies combined $150 Billion supply chain needs to American small businesses as new business opportunities.

Key to this opportunity is that Supplier Connection will serve as a free, single tool that small businesses will be able to use to plug into these large companies, find out about purchasing needs, and make their ability known.

These six companies – AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup, IBM, Pfizer, and UPS – are looking for small businesses like yours:

• Under 500 employees.  The goal is to stimulate smaller companies that create jobs.
• For-Profit companies
• Providers of excellent products and services.
• Well run and managed organizations that deliver on their promises.

Best of all, the program will grow!  These big six envision growing to as many as 100 of the country’s top firms opening their supply chains to you for your help in filling their needs.  That will mean hundreds of millions – billions, even – of new business opportunities over the coming months and the years ahead.

The best part is this new initiative will be a free, one-stop opportunity for you to plug into the supply chains of these organizations to find out what they need and make your abilities and expertise known.  Just one web tool for you to use in order to gain access to millions in opportunities across all organizations that participate.

And their need for products and services will be both broad and deep.  According to the IBM press release, initial demand will include the need for services, marketing, food, construction, and many more categories.

Here’s the only catch: The program is not launched yet.  It’s scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2011, and that leaves you just enough time to completely forget about this exceptional opportunity.  And as of this writing (Sept 2010) there’s not yet a sign-up for more information on the Supplier connection website.

So I’ve taken it upon myself to create a free sign up for alerts about this program.  Just go to:

http://www.DustinWalling.com/SupplierConnection/

and sign-up to stay informed about IBM’s Supplier Connection program and know when it launches.

Now, you know what’s coming next, right?  My job is to help ensure that your business is one of the top competitors when it’s time for you to compete under Supplier Connection.  Dustin Walling Associates is all about making your business stand out from the rest and be the best.  So start now to get ready for this great opportunity:

• Take advantage of our free Instant Action Plan Toolkit to identify key areas in your business you can improve immediately, and to create your action plan for your to do it.
• Take us up on our offer of a complimentary coaching call about your business.

Remember to sign up for your reminders about the new Supplier Connection initiative right away by visiting:

http://www.DustinWalling.com/SupplierConnection/

And remember to share – send this post to your friends and colleagues so they know about Supplier Connection, too!


Free Guide: Action Planning Step-by-Step

Quickly and painlessly identify your most impactful issues and craft action plans using our step-by-step process.

Download your personalized report and action planning guide you can use to improve your the performance of your business.

This morning I had the pleasure to hear Mr. John Matthews, Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Risk Management for Costco, speak to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club.  John’s message featured the Costco Salmon Story.

Quite simply, in the 15 years since 1995, Costco has improved the quality of the salmon sold in its stores no less than five times by working with vendors based on customer feedback.  The result of these improvements is that the fish costs 25% less per pound than it did before, and the chain sells 12 times as much, netting out more than 130 million pounds.

The thing I like about John’s story is your business doesn’t have to be Costco and your product doesn’t have to be fish.  The question is what proactive steps can you identify today in order to make your product – your entire business – better?  What action can you take right now to improve?  And after that?

For suggestions on getting started, check out DWA’s Leadership Action Points™, our blueprint for turning leadership into profits through action.  And for a truly fast kick-start, try out our Instant Action Plan which will show you where to focus your energies first first fast growth.

But what really fascinates me is when, like last night, an episode of MasterChef can serve as an advertisement for the importance of market research.

If you didn’t see it, the final challenge of the night pitted Red Team vs. Blue Team in true Gordon Ramsay style to cook the best hamburger for hungry truckers.  The truckers determined the winning team by voting in true trucker style – by pulling a would-be air horn cord rigged to a counter.

But the really interesting part was what happened in each of the teams.

Red Team began as a complete disaster, producing a product that frankly never made it to market.  Their burgers wouldn’t cook, wouldn’t stay together, and couldn’t even make it onto a bun let alone be eaten.

Blue Team, by contrast, had their plans perfected into a tried-and-true recipe and produced a consistent product right out of the gate.

Then the fun began.

Red Team, under the emerging leadership of Sharone, broke all the rules.  Actually, that’s not quite right.  They realized the rules Blue Team was apparently playing by weren’t actually rules at all.

Red Team didn’t just get their act together, they changed their recipe. And when that worked, they made it better. And when things were going great, they made it better still.  (How do you make a trucker burger great?  Dip it in bacon grease and double the size.  Yum.)

While Blue Team, under the emerging “leadership” of Jake stood still and stuck to their product, Red Team 1) Found out what their customers liked about their products, 2) Made it better, and 3) Introduced new features to make it better still.

Call it artificial constraints.  Call it stubbornness.  Blue Team got stuck in it.  Red Team broke free, reinvented themselves multiple times within the span of one meal service, and came back to win.

My favorite moment: Even after they lost, Jake of the Blue Team said, “We had the better hamburger.”  If only I a dollar for every business owner who decided what their customers want without consulting them and gone out of business with their convictions intact.

What assumptions do you make about your customers and their desires?  How do you know those assumptions are fact-based?

Most importantly, what steps can you take right now to begin separating fact from fiction?

If you’ve had business success, you already know access to information is critical, so this may not surprise you.

But according to U.C. San Diego’s ongoing “How Much Information?” study, the average American’s daily consumption of data – things like phone calls, emails, videos, television shows, tweets, songs, even books, magazines, papers and the like – has ballooned to more than 34 gigabytes per day, up from a still staggering 10 gigabytes per day in 1980, just 30 years earlier.

That’s an annual growth rate of about 5.4% in the information we consume in order to try and keep up.  Compare that with monetary measure of keeping up, inflation, which as of this writing stands at just 1.05% and just 3.39% for roughly the last hundred years.

Information is king.

(Oh, by the way: the U.C. San Diego study doesn’t even include data you consume while at work, so the real tally is far higher.)

There is zero doubt that we are information ravenous and trending toward gleefully gluttonous.

Despite our digital selves, the truth remains that it’s not simply “more information” that’s important for creating success.  Endless information quickly leads many leaders to impasse, inaction, and overwhelm.  When facing the challenges of lagging sales, tapped credit lines, creditors calling, and clueless employees asking for raises, an owner doesn’t need a 13^th off-base idea from a self-proclaimed internet guru. He needs real advice from real people who have faced his situation before.

It’s “right information” that counts.  If anything, our digital bounty makes more obvious the need for critical thinking and for the savvy business leader to have tools to lift signal from noise.

Among the best “signal detection” tools for those desiring high performance are executive roundtables.  Also sometimes known as peer groups or mastermind groups, some roundtables may be enhanced by the power of the internet, but here are at least six excellent reasons for you to unplug and work on your business.

Community of Business Peers

The New York Herald Tribune said that “doing business without marketing is like winking at a girl in the dark” – not very effective.  Similarly, leading from isolation is like recommissioning Alcatraz in your mind.

Imagine instead a group of 8-12 dedicated professionals at your same level of leadership, convening every month to focus on you.  Unlike a number of high quality social clubs focused on networking or contributing to society, this group is focused specifically on helping you identify and seize business opportunities and overcome challenges.

Never again feeling alone in business is an important benefit of roundtables, but most members are gratified by how much they are able to bring their own expertise to bear on the businesses of others.  This cooperation creates a community of leaders who are committed to achieving monthly gains in performance and helping each other achieve the same.

Designated Time for Improvement

If you’ve experienced it, there is little arguing with the power of setting aside dedicated time for improvement and growth.

That’s why unplugging is so important.

I’m not talking about time where improvement is the primary among many focal activities (aka distractions).  I mean time where improvement is the only mission and the unitary purpose.

Feel free to call me out: am I the only one who checks email, does paperwork, or even takes the occasional call during webinars?  There is no substitute for the focus imposed through scheduled blocks of invested time backed by the power of social norms.

Imagine the advancements possible if no less than once a month you took dedicated time to focus on your business.  Invest your time through your engagement in a quality roundtable and your business will profit.

System for Continuous Improvement

Some of my corporate consulting clients have looked at me with healthy confusion when I have suggested that they also seek out coaching in the form of a roundtable… even from one of my competitors.

Good roundtables are based on a system of thinking about the health of a business.  Regardless of a theme, the very best develop a focus on corporate leadership, foster alignment of people and planning, enforce performance management concepts (more later), and build personal and professional skills.

These facets align perfectly with my own corporate consulting and coaching, so I urge my clients to seek out roundtables.  Increased thinking about how to achieve success reinforces my own work and speeds my client’s success.

Problem Solving

A key component of overcoming “Alcatraz of the Mind” – and one of the most powerful aspects of roundtables – happens when members engage in problem solving with each other.

Look for a roundtable format that offers you the chance to voice a current challenge in your business and enlist the support of your peers in solving it.  These interactions have led to some great moments of resource sharing, solution creation, and even the occasional business opportunities.

Learning and Professional Development

Earlier I mentioned continuous improvement, and learning and professional development is central to that.

My preference is for monthly discussion of a topic of need or interest to the group.  For example, finding and winning more business, or hiring and retaining key employees are two popular topics with most groups.

The cornerstone is that the topics are driven by the needs of the group and that they stimulate informative, lively discussions that equip the members with immediately applicable information.

Coaching and Accountability

It’s easy to say we’re going to accomplish something… and then not actually get it done, as long as nobody is looking. That gets tougher when a dozen peers are staring back at you every month with just one question: “Did you make it happen?”  This alone is priceless for many.

Combine that with one-on-one coaching from a professional facilitator.  These monthly sessions are designed to be more focused on the individual needs of your company to guide you through trouble spots.

Do note that not all roundtables feature one-on-one coaching, so be sure to choose according to your preference.

Finding Your Group

Remember that executive roundtables are built on trust as well as degree of match, so it may take a few tries to find the right fit for you.  You should always seek a group with businesses your approximate size, and should never enter a group with your competitors.

For groups that are already formed, expect to interview and be interviewed by both the facilitator and the group at large, who will vote on your membership.  For groups still forming, the facilitator will take pains to carefully match members.

For more information or to join a group that matches your needs, contact Dustin Walling Associates.

When you invest in the right executive roundtable, your signal-to-noise ratio will go up, and your profitability should follow suit.

I really got stuck on the idea of touching the pulse of as many savvy people as I could to really find out what the top issues are right now.

So last week, I did something that seemed logical at the time – I asked the folks on my list a very simple question:

What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now in growing your business?

Responses have been coming a *wee bit* more steadily than planned.  There are definitely some common themes, and I’ve really enjoyed the chats and email conversations I’ve had, but it’s tough keeping up.

So I’m doing the only logical thing – I’m asking for your help.

Below, I’ve paraphrased some of the responses I’ve gotten so far, and even combined some.  All names have been removed (to protect the innocent!) and the stories have been changed a bit to mask identities.  But the concepts are the same.

***Yes, I have left company names out; in some cases I have materially changed facts (e.g. line of business) to protect identities.  The concepts, I assure you, are still the same.

What I’d like from you:

1. Read through the responses.
2. Find one that you know how to solve, or for which you have a helpful suggestion.
3. Leave a comment with your answer. (Remember, you can post under an anonymous “name.”)
4. If your response is on this list, check back here for what people suggested.

Here are the top themes and issues people reported as challenges when trying to grow their business right now:

How to Find and Win Clients

Diversify or Die
As an ad agency, we’ve had some solid accounts in a few good markets for several years now.  Frankly, some of our big name clients have been dumb and gone under these last few years.  We DON’T want to follow their lead.  We have to break into new markets.  Two markets in particular we’re looking at are 1) game companies, and 2) clean tech companies.  We have a lot of related experience that maps well. But how can we best communicate that and how do we best approach and position in these two markets?
- Ad Agency
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Too Affordable for our Own Good
Frankly, it often turns out that we’re quite a bit more affordable than our competition – and because of that we struggle!  When buyers find out we can accomplish the same thing for so much less than the competition, they lose confidence instead of getting excited.  We’re finding it challenging to find buyers who are cost-conscious and in search of innovation in a sea of buyers looking for tried-and-true.  How do we profile and prospect for the innovator?
- CleanTech Public Utility Consulting Firm
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They’re There, They Nibble, They Don’t Bite
We’re recognized experts in our specialized niche market.  Sure, the economy is down, but we’re still seeing lots of opportunity in our market place.  The problem is nobody is taking advantage of it.  Nobody is going after work!  So it’s hard to find people who actually need our services rather than just “kick our tires.”  How do we find, qualify, and land ready-to-buy leads into clients?
– Construction Management Consultants
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Diversify or Die #2
We sell heavy equipment to construction companies.  Construction companies… are not buying.  We need to sell to someone other than construction companies.  Pretty simple.  Other than there are a limited number of non-construction buyers and most of their budgets have been downsized, too.  We’re already much more focused on service, overhauls, parts, and the like.  But we’re all ears.
- Heavy Equipment Dealer
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Winning A Bid or Two
Most of the bids coming in on construction projects these days are straight out of Disney – complete fairy tales.  On the one hand, you’ve got guys cheating the system by designating everybody an owner of the company so they don’t have to pay certain fees, taxes, and prevailing wages.  On the other hand, you’ve got people returning bids below *cost.*  I haven’t figured out a way to win a bid at break even, let alone a profit.  Thoughts?
- Plumbing Contractor
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Cash Flow is King
Don’t get me wrong – we love big projects.  But all the general contractors we do work for have stretched their payment terms out so long that it’s not practical to be in business with just them as clients – and they don’t seem to understand that, or care.  We need faster cash.  We either need from the general contractors, or we need it from somewhere else.  For the moment, we’ve taken to focusing a good amount of effort on growing our service line back up because it provides same-day payment.  Any thoughts on speeding up the generals, or cash in general?
- Electrical Contractor
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How to Survive on Fewer Resources

Do More With Less
Our clients have no budget for anything but the basics.  That means we need less staff.  But that means service sometimes suffers… putting us at risk of losing clients.  Ouch.  The questions are 1) how to accomplish everything at high quality with fewer resources, and 2) how to develop new business when people are pinching pennies?
– Professional Service Firm
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Striking a Balance With Resources
As technical consultants, we live on a teeter-totter. Either we have too many people and too little work, or we win a contract and we’re scrambling to find people.  It never feels comfortable.  To complicate things, we deliver best-of-breed results, so we’re not big fans of bringing in short term contractors to fill gaps due to the quality of work we’ve received.  So what are we supposed to do?
- Technical Consultants
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Blind Resource Cuts
Our company implemented across the board departmental cuts.  That means when engineering has the same workload but less people, the only resource we can use to make up the gap is technology.  But IT was given an across the board cut, too.  So they don’t have any resources to deliver what we need.  So now nobody can get their job accomplished.  People are overloaded.  Profit falls.  Morale drops.  People leave.  How do we convince somebody to stop managing this place like a Dilbert cartoon?
- Fortune 50 Manufacturing Company
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No Credit = No Sale
Our customers don’t have any money or credit to purchase from us, and we can’t get any credit to extend favorable terms or expand into new areas even if we wanted to.  All that means sluggish sales and makes it hard to pay off the lines we do have.  What can we do when it seems credit is the issue?
- Advertising Agency
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How to Do Marketing

Nobody Understands What We Do
We’ve created innovations in eCommerce and Fair Trade that are so revolutionary that they’re hard to put into words.  We’ve put a great deal of effort into trying to communicate clearly about our capabilities, innovations, and what our platform can do. But it seems that we still struggle to explain them simply in a way that people understand and care about.  As a result, it remains tough to find start-up funding.  How do we crack this nut?
– eCommerce Start-up
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Re-Marketing
I’m trying to reinvent our message to get back in front of clients that think they already know us.  There’s more that we can do for them.  I’m trying to create campaigns complete with calls, emails, postcards, webinars - you name it – not only to capture new customers but to wake up established ones, too.  How can I get going in a unified way?
- Non-Profit Advocacy Group
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Internet Marketing
I have inspirational art targeted at coaches, consultants, speakers, and bloggers.  Whatever emotion you’re trying to elicit, I’ve got the perfect piece of art, paired with the perfect quote.  Now what I’m trying to do is figure out the easiest and best way to run an eCommerce Marketing test to market my work.  How do I get started?
- Artist
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How to Do Leadership

Getting Unstuck
Knowing where and how to grow, and how to start.  Knowing that I can do it.  Just simply getting unstuck.
- Professional Services Firm
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Finding Time to Delegate
The manager knows he’s spread too thin and needs to delegate more and “do” less, but he doesn’t seem to find the time.  As a result, we two senior leaders aren’t taking an active roll.  This is all made worse by the addition of two new hires that just slow things down, and a remodeling project that slow it down more.  How can we get things moving again?
- Security Contractor
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