Top Workplaces – What Is the Competitive Advantage?

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Aszure Gray

Recently, WorkplaceDynamics released their annual survey of over 20,000 employees from almost 100 workplaces in Central Indiana to determine what is critical to dynamics in the workplace – 2012 TopWorkplaces. (I’m proud to congratulate a long-time client of ADVISA, and myself, Schmidt Associates, for being noted a TopWorkplace this year!) Tracking performance of participating companies over the last 5 years, they’ve found a trend.

There are 3 traits driving company performance:

People are in on the organization’s direction and its values
Employees are executing well
People feel connected to the company

Among those surveyed, organizations with the above are outperforming last year’s market by 12%. “The latest thinking is that organizational health is the competitive advantage“, says WorkplaceDynamics CEO, Doug Claffey.

If this is the competitive advantage, as I also am confident it is, how does an organization achieve it? How do these organizations go about ensuring everyone is in on the direction; work is well executed; and people are connected?

The answer is a simple one: Organizational health is a priority. These companies realize that their people get the job done. How they perform determines their profitability. “Healthy” companies don’t take this for granted and view their people as an investment, not an expense.

To conduct a quick “health check-up” on your own organization, answer these two questions:

Does your organization have a “direction” or strategic plan for employees to connect to? A strategic plan provides the big picture focus that permits employees to understand how their contribution impacts the company. Without this, employees can feel disconnected and adopt a “Who cares?” attitude.

Are your organization’s values communicated clearly in both word and actions? To do so can provide your employees the confidence to delegate more often. When faced with a challenge, they know what matters in your organization – what the company will and won’t do. A strong base of confident employees can lead to more individuals stepping up with new ideas and innovation. It also builds trust among team members. Performance and execution improve. And, so does profitability!

How do I know? This is what we do at ADVISA. We help our clients achieve organizational health by creating an organizational plan and communicating that vision; improving employee productivity and engagement; and increasing sales and performance. Getting measurable results is what we do. Being a TopWorkplace doesn’t just sound good. It’s profitable too.

A critical flaw in your strategic plan. How will you address it?

Posted on January 30, 2012 by BJ McKay

Most companies gather their leadership team once per year to discuss strategic planning. This is a time-honored event that, in many cases, produces little tangible result. There is often recreation, along with retreat from the day-to-day grind of running the business, but actions and behaviors typically stay the same when those key executives return to the job. There are likely many reasons for this, but one that I encounter most often is that the actual talent within the company – the same talent that will ultimately produce the outcomes drawn up during the strategic planning retreat – were not included and were poorly assessed.

Strategic plans drawn up in a (relative) vacuum can be dangerous vehicles for de-motivating employees and setting them on a path to an unrealistic goal. It is a tragic management mistake to tell high performers in any role that they are consistently behind and on a collision course for failure. This unnecessarily taxes and drains key people and leaves them with a half-tank of gas to finish the race. Often, the strategic plan itself becomes a key lever for lack of energy and lack of motivation leading to poor results.

Has your strategic plan produced these outcomes? Here is how to fix it:

1) Start with real data on the people responsible for the goals within the strategic plan. We use Predictive Index® at ADVISA as a foundational element of our strategic/organizational planning process. By understanding the hard-wiring and makeup of employees, our clients avoid guessing about how to motivate their people and how to foster an environment where their employees can produce.

2) Start with real data on your company’s past performance in the key areas that will be measured as a benchmark for success. Often, leadership can explain away poor results, feign accountability, and say “next year will be nothing like last year.” This is a critical mistake. Facing at the truth – which is often in the numbers – can provide a realistic framework to take “one step at a time” in the near-term. Know that your benchmarks are realistic before codifying the strategic plan for distribution, otherwise you risk a real morale and energy drain by teeing your people up for failure.

3) Use a competent, credible, and trusted third-party consultant to facilitate your strategic planning. At ADVISA, we have been involved in strategic planning for over 20 years, facilitating for many industries. Our team of management consultants is sharp, experienced, and trained in expert facilitation. While we are partial to our own team, there are many credible and talented facilitators in the marketplace. Avoid trying to feign objectivity by running your own strategic planning. This can be reckless. And it is unfair to place key executives – especially those who have bought in to the company – in a position to operate as if they can be clearly objective facilitators. These are people who have key performance metrics that will inevitably cloud their vision. This focus is what makes them special at their jobs, and allows them to be key contributors within the strategic planning session. However, if they are asked to facilitate a strategic plan, this becomes a crutch.

If you are interested in learning how I, and our team at ADVISA, can assist you and your management team in strategic planning please call us at 317.249.2258. If you already have a trusted facilitator, consider sharing this post and looking critically at the people that will make your strategic plan successful.

Credit Union Gets More than the Usual Strategic Planning

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Beth Claflin

Nothing makes us more proud than pleasing our customers. Here’s a recent example from Gerber Federal Credit Union, of Fremont, MI.

After comparing several different options, the Gerber FCU Board of Directors chose ADVISA to lead their most recent strategic planning session. This was their third session during the past 10 years. While they knew that the time commitment and brainwork they devoted to defining dreams, analyzing threats and setting goals were important investments, they were surprised by the ongoing guidance for day-to-day activities the plan provides.

“I have been involved in probably 10-12 strategic planning sessions throughout my 35 years in business,” said Greg Zerlaut, Chairman of the Gerber Federal Credit Union Board of Directors. “This is the first time a strategic planning document has become a focal point that drives operations.”

“The marvelous tool is the Scorecard,” Greg said. “We have five major goals that are broken down into interim progress milestones. This has become the guts and core of our board discussions each month. It has evolved as a living document, as we have edited it several times for emerging issues.”

You can read the complete story by downloading it here.

How well does is your strategic plan drive implementation and achievement of goals? You can learn more about our specialized approach to organizational planning on this webpage, or reach out to us here.

Can My Company Live Without Me?

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Bob Wilson

Successful entrepreneurs work for years to build their businesses to achieve revenues and profits and to become a reflection of all of their hard work. It’s a shame when they get to the point of late-middle age and find that the business that they’ve built isn’t sustainable without them and wonder if they still like doing what they’re doing. If they have no children in the business or clear successors to their reign, the value that they’d hoped to achieve from transitioning the business can be a chimera. This is the point at which some sort of family business planning or small business strategic planning becomes essential.

In many ways, building a business is like raising a child. It’s in the entrepreneurs interest to prepare it for life on its own – without the comforting direction of the owner / developer. That’s a very hard thing for many owners to do. After all, it’s been their life to create the business that is so intertwined with their own life. And, owners can, like parents, hover over their children making decisions that preclude their businesses from growing up and being able to function on their own.

What to do if you’re in this place?

First, you must come to grips with what you want out of the business and the rest of your life – to make the equivalent of a personal strategic plan. Once a clear picture is formulated in your own mind of how you want to interact with the business and live your life – in work commitment, financial rewards, involvement – it’s time to work through a successful strategic planning mechanism for the business.

Waking up in late middle age wondering what one is going to do with one’s life and one’s business isn’t a very good place to be. Building the business was just too much work to face that. But, if that’s where you find yourself, you should give me a call. You need help I can provide.

Impatience Rules!

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Paul Dumouchelle

During a panel discussion on internet marketing held by the Columbus AMA, a panelist discussing web design mentioned that an emerging trend is to “google-ize” the home page for a website. What they meant was that rather than displaying information in a structured format with links to various sections a search box is presented into which a user inputs their keyword of interest and results within the website are returned for the user’s choice to select. In this way the user gets exactly what they want faster – which is a good thing.

Successful strategic planning should take this accelerating trend into account.

Using a search engine to get exactly what you want faster is just another example in which impatience rules the day in our business world. “SEO” is the watchword of the day for internet marketing – “Search Engine Optimization” – how to get your website at the top of the list for your keywords in your segment.

A hyper-urgent sense of urgency drives tweeting limited to 140 characters. The need for constant connectivity drives smartphone penetration and 3G-4G-XG network capability expansion. Today’s psychology of selling is measured in nanoseconds.

Squeezing soundbite content into micro-video clips on YouTube is the communication hotspot of the day.

If your strategic planning framework assumes patience in your target customer – watch out. Ask any newspaperman how that’s working for them.

Breaking out of “all or nothing” mode

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Dana Harrison

Several little experiences this week have made me think about the “all or nothing” mode that we can get mentally stuck in.

An HR Director I was talking with was set on making three new hires because he’d lost three employees earlier this year during downsizing. The company doesn’t have the money to do three hires and he was lamenting that they couldn’t do anything. Really? We talked through what the company could do. Are two hires possible? How could work be divided differently with two people? Solutions quickly began to emerge.
This perils of “all or nothing” mode also came up when I read Doug Karr’s posting about The Most Important Skill Salespeople Need to Learn. He demonstrates why rather than try to sell the moon (the “all”), we should listen to what the customer is asking for. In the consulting world, I see this all the time. It’s easy to get caught up visioning the eight problems we could fix rather than the one that the client has asked for help with. I’ve certainly fallen into this trap and then it really is an “all or nothing” because the client gets annoyed, overwhelmed, impatient (all completely understandable) and buys into nothing.
In my own continual quest for successful strategic planning, I get stuck thinking that I can’t move forward until I have absolutely everything figured out and packaged in a pretty box with a bow on top. I’m doing a lot of work right now getting ready for 2010 and am continually challenging myself to let go of the pretty box and a bow: do good planning and then MOVE!

The “all or nothing” rut is one I have to work not to get lost in, so it’s something I think about a lot. Below are some ways I deal with it.

Talk it up – Find a “thinking partner” who will help me thinking through the roadblocks I’ve created.
Get moving – Go for a walk/run/bike ride.
Take a road trip – I might even plan a trip to visit a client who is a couple of hours away when I know I need some real “think time.”
Visual reminders – I can’t live without a white board in my office. Often it has a message such as, “No bow necessary!” or “What CAN I do?” written in red to help me keep perspective.
Listen to someone else’s challenges – Sometimes listening to a colleague talk through an issue will generate creative thought that I can apply in my own world.

Maybe others of you will find this useful when you’re stuck in this mindset whether in your work world (dealing with staff motivation, developing hiring plans, implementing strategic planning, etc.) to your personal world (buying a house, planning a trip, etc.). I’d love to hear your perspective on “all or nothing” as well!

“6 Pails” – Setting and Measuring Employee Productivity

Posted on December 10, 2009 by John Ranalletta

Are you rationalizing poor performance? It’s an easy habit to acquire and sounds like, “We can’t find the right person” or “the employee has been here for years.” In some cases, the employee has a Predictive Index® profile that is appropriate for the job and sometimes, not. In either case, there seems to be a growing unease among managers to insist on employee productivity andperformance. Here are some thoughts on performance measurement:
The most common reason managers tolerate sub-standard performance is that performance hasn’t been defined. At gut level, most managers know which employees are doing well and which aren’t but when asked, non-performers and performers alike are often unable to describe what’s expected of them. Some managers and owners have not equipped themselves with a definitive strategic planning system and near term objectives to benchmark performance of the company, its divisions, departments, managers and employees and measure their contribution to the plan.

In some cases, especially in larger companies, there appears to be a growing reticence to make tough decisions. Fear of lawsuits and fear of conflict and confrontation permeate the atmosphere. Worse, the idea that any person can do any job if just given enough time and training is gaining traction among human resource practitioners and some managers. What a lovely thought! Too bad it isn’t so. If this were true, nobody or no company would fail but we know they do, despite our every effort.

In other cases, managers haven’t been given authority, incentive or management skills training by their organizations to make these decisions; and, elsewhere, the managers themselves don’t understand their own performance measures; and, thus, have difficulty re-defining or delegating their authority or responsibility for details to their subordinates.

In a small furniture store near my home hangs a framed token inscribed, “6 Pails”. The token is from an old tomato canning operation found during a recent restoration project. Employees earned one token for every 6 pails of tomatoes they packed. Not 5 or 5 1/2, but 6. That’s a clear connection between pay and performance.

Can each of your employees answer this question, “What do you have to do today to be successful in your job?” Does the answer suggest the work is aligned to your goals?

Every employee’s pay plan should clearly and unequivocally state what the employee has to do today and how to do it to keep his/her job and enjoy performance bonuses, if appropriate. The connection between pay plans and performance should not be fuzzy or non-existent, nor should employees be rewarded for time in place or seniority.

Why strategic plans fail

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Todd Gross

Most companies take a strategic planning approach that leaves them heavy on strategy and light on planning. Our strategic planning theory takes an inverse approach. The only reason to do the strategy is so you have a target and set of parameters around which you can build a good plan. It’s like trying to drive to a place you have never been before without any knowledge of where it is or and not having a road map to get you there. A good plan is like a modern day GPS turn-by-turn guidance system, it certainly needs a destination but its value is in how in guides you along the way.

The plan itself needs to be specific as to who does what by when. Do you have specific tasks with assigned responsibilities and stated time lines that can be measured and discussed on a regular basis? Most of my clients review their scorecard metrics on a weekly or monthly basis. The peer pressure, regular discussions and follow up create an environment where the strategy becomes reality. By reviewing the metrics regularly you can adjust time lines, realign resources or refocus effort before you run the risk of not completing the task and find yourself in crisis mode.

How Long Until Hiring Picks Up?

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Paul Dumouchelle

Today’s news that unemployment declined in November is welcome.

Although a mindset of “recession” continues to exist for many people, one of the benefits of strategic planning is that you can have ready-made plans to implement when key turning points occur.

As opportunities for growth and profitability expand employee recruiting and applicant screening are going to rise on people’s list of priorities.If you haven’t been in the job market for new employees recently, expect a tsunami of resumes when you start looking. HR best practices demand a quick turnaround on applicant inquiries.

Are you ready?

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