Executive Wisdom for Business

Is your HR Manager ready for the economic recovery?

Today (3 June 2009), it was announced that Australia had NOT slipped into an official economic recession.

I have been commenting for some time that the economic downturn (especially in Australia) was more perceived than actual. With that in mind, I have been explaining to the business executives in my Mentoring & Coaching Program to focus efforts on combating the perception not the economic downturn.

There is no doubting that economic recovery is inevitable and near. But is your HR/Recruitment strategy prepared and competent to allow your organisation to maximise this opportunity, quickly?

Ric's Tips:

1. Anticipate your workforce needs now for the expected recovery and the improved business that follows. Your organisation's recruitment model necessarily should be based on pre-need. On pre-requisition hiring. Incorporate and integrate your recruitment function with other business critical activities such as budgeting and sales forecasting.
2. Prioritise your people needs strategically according to their impact on the bottom-line.
3. Be agile - be quick. Be fast, flexible and use effective recruitment methodology to align your processes and enable speed. Why? The best people are in the market for an average of less than 27 days. If your process to attract talent takes longer, you will no doubt be employing average performers.
4. Be aggressive! Be strategic! Reach out laterally! Research the market to learn who's who on a pre-need, proactive basis for critical positions. Use practical tactics such as interviewing new hires within five days of commencement to get the names of other top performers from their previous organisation.
5. Differentiate. Acquire the skills necessary to filter unwanted and unqualified candidates very early in your process. Learn how to recognise top performers, where they originate, why they are interested in the role, and where you can find more of the same top performers.
6. Make management accountable. Managers make the difference in determining whether people remain with you or leave. People don't leave jobs, they escape people. Staff turnover is more often than not caused by the boss/manager/supervisor, not the work. Create a culture that supports retention of good people. In my consulting projects with some of the world's finest organisations, I facilitated the inclusion of Retention KPIs in the performance management and compensation scheme of management. It will help build such a culture.
7. Experiment. Be prepared to try new ideas and embrace prudent, acceptable risk as a way of life. Relying on best practice means being only as good as someone else. Lead the way. Seek to break new ground and take risks.

By the way ... true talent is attracted not recruited!

Management can learn how to be best in class by attending the Executive Wisdom Business Leader's MBA Program in January 2010. Register your interest now.

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

Threats to your business

I was interviewed on radio and asked what I believed were the most significant threats to business at this time, given the world economic turmoil. Here are my top 6!

1. Cash-flow problems
2. Creditors/Litigants
3. Change in demand
4. Change in technology (especially in conjunction with your marketing strategy)
5. Loss of key staff
6. Lack of innovation

Here's what I'd like to hear from you about:

• Right now, what are you doing to protect your business?
• Right now, what are you doing to grow your business?
• Right now, what are you doing to develop your fundamental value proposition?

We'd like you to share your wins, experiences and best practices.

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

When Customers Aren't Buying

There are things in life we can use to make really nice analogies. One of them is fishing, another is food, but fishing is where I'm going this time. I'm thinking about the worries people are having everywhere about why there aren't any customers.

We obviously know there's an economic meltdown taking place, but that's such a huge and complicated problem it's almost impossible to get your mind around. So we sit at work, look at the online statistics and wonder, where are the customers?

How come the fish aren't biting?

Fishermen are amazing people. And for those politically-correct people in the house, I'm using "men" as the generic representation of mankind. Research tells us that way back when German was getting started, back when it was known as Proto-German, the common ancestor of all germanic languages, "mannaz" meant "person." The word "man," and "mankind" originally meant "person" and "personkind."

Okay, back to the topic: Fishermen are nuts. Now that's not politically correct, but it's true just the same. All fishermen know that when you go out fishing in the spring and fall, it's reasonably easy to catch fish. But then comes the dead of summer, with July and August (in the northern hemisphere), and there aren't any fish.

Of course there are fish in the water! We know that! A simple experiment of throwing a few hundred pounds of dynamite into any lake or reservoir brings up lots of fish. That's illegal, by the way, so it doesn't happen very much.

But if there are all these fish in the water, how come they aren't biting? Well, the first thing that happens is everyone is all excited about going fishing. They gather up the gear, pack the trucks and boats, get the food and snacks, buy the bait, and off they go. Anticipation of a fine fish dinner flows like smoke across the land, and everyone is sure they'll catch fish.

Hour one goes by with no bites. Hour two goes by with no bites. And by around hour three, people begin to get antsy. They walk around or drive the boats around, light up some smokes or pipes, pop open some beers and start asking each other, "Gettin' any bites?"

"Nope. How 'bout you? Anything?"

And before long, the philosophic and scientific theories begin flowing. "Well, y'see, there's this big ol' storm-front comin' in off the coast, bringin' with it a bigass low pressure area. And as the atmosphere gets less pressure, it causes the water to bend upward, see. The fish can sense that, so they swim lower and hunker down, waitin' out the storm."

Or it might be something along the lines that, "fish are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation, and we been havin' some fearsome sunspots this past month or so."

Others gather around the tackle boxes and ponder the lures they bought over the winter. They dig through everything that isn't working, and find a treasure at the bottom of the box. It's a miniature replica of an Atlantean mermaid, with a blue tail covered in silver glitter and some hooks dangling off the fins. That's SURE to catch the fish!

Fishermen are known for buying lures that appeal to them, not to fish. It seems as if the lures should catch fish, and in the daydream haze of icebound winter, who wouldn't bite that lure? "Hell, it looks good enough t'eat," so they lay down the cash.

It's in July and August that those lures come out. "What the hell, can't hurt...may's well give'er a shot."

The fact is: fish don't need to eat in July and August. If you're a pro and you know about fish, and you do a lot of research and spend a lot of time, you can maybe entice a fish to attack. That's not the same as eating. But a fish uses its mouth to attack, so if there's a hook, chances are you might catch the fish.

Customers aren't biting because it's not a good time for customers to bite! If you're a pro and you know a lot about marketing, and you really do some serious research, you might be able to entice some customers to act. If you have a really tantalizing product for bait, and a bored fish, perhaps you'll even get a few sales here and there.

But the bottom line is that when people want to buy, they buy. When they don't want to buy, they don't buy. All the fancy theories and scientific explanations aren't really going to do a whole lot. The best solution is to either go home and try again the next day, or hunker down and sit there with the lines out and baited hooks.

The one thing that will guarantee no fish -- no customers -- is to not even be in the water. If you don't even have a fishing pole, don't have hooks, and don't have any kind of bait, then for a fact, you won't catch any fish. Just don't always assume that it's something wrong with what you're doing that's causing a problem.

Flip or Flop

Who is deciding what your business is really capable of - you, your employees or your customers?

The world watched Dick Fosbury change forever the execution of a high jump in 1968. After Fosbury won the 1968 Olympic Gold Medal for high jump, the USA coach, Payton Jordan said: "Kids imitate champions. If they try to imitate Fosbury, he'll wipe out an entire generation of high jumpers because they will all have broken necks."

Fancy that ... an expert getting it wrong! Generations of kids have followed Fosbury and not surprisingly didn't break their necks, but the bar has been raised with new records. Fosbury went over the high jump bar backwards and head first. He gambled and he altered the way people think. Forever!

No athlete worth a cracker would ever consider competing in high jump competitions using the old scissor leg methods.

The Olympics of Customer Service has raised the bar to new heights with innovative thinking as well. Blockbuster Video guarantees if they don't have your choice of new release video in store when you want it, it's free. Dell Computers promise and commit to despatching your customised computer within 24 hours of receiving your order.

Sensational service means taking your business to greater levels. Customer's are expecting and demanding higher levels of service, quality and delivery. Ignore those expectations and you may risk becoming insignificant in your industry.

Understand that we are living in a world that embraces change readily. And, just because an idea may not work first time in its initial form, doesn't mean it is a bad idea or that it is wrong for your business. Explore ideas and innovations, and test them on a sample basis. If they don't work or even if they don't produce the results you anticipated and hoped for, change, alter and amend and then try it again.

Move away from perfection to performance. Look for inspiration by what other industries may do. Think outside the square, literally.

RIC's Tips:

1. Accept that change and increased consumer demand is here to stay.
2. Adapt to these challenges and to the needs of your consumer market.
3. Adopt a can-do attitude and the Olympiads motto: "Fortius, Altius, Citius" - Faster, Higher, Stronger.

Ric Willmot

The Hidden Failure in Crisis Management

A crisis is an unexpected event. It's the manifestation of a series of breakdowns that reach a "critical" point. Crisis and critical have generally related roots in reference to sifting through things and making judgments. We use the slang expression of "fighting fires" to mean dealing with crises.

In the nature of a crisis, they aren't the ordinary way of doing business. A crisis, after all, is for the most part unexpected. If a crisis is expected, then it's usually in the short term. Events have been leading up to a breakdown, with only the particular moment of failure being unknown.

All of us, and all businesses tend to have their various crisis points. It's part of life, and we learn how to handle those emergencies. But when we're dealing with crises and emergencies over and over, day after day on a repeated basis, then they aren't crises anymore. It's your way of doing business!

Anyone who finds themselves handling emergencies over and over again has a problem. Their business processes, business structure, and overall organizational strategy are wrong or have completely failed. It may be due to a fundamental shift of the environment, or it could be a management problem. Whatever the cause, constantly dealing with emergencies is a sign of disease.

It's possible to have a business entirely devoted to solving emergencies and handling crises. We can simply look at a local hospital to understand that the ER doctors and personnel are specifically there for the purpose of handling a continuing stream of crises.

But is that really true? No, not really. It isn't the ER doctors who have a never-ending series of emergencies. It's the individual patients who have the unusual, unexpected, and unpredicted crisis. The hospital and the doctors can easily predict the trends toward crisis and emergencies and are prepared to handle a continual stream of OTHER people's crises.

The key is trend analysis, histograms, and predictions based on probabilities.

And that's what missing in a business organization that functions only on crisis management. It's due to the lack of accumulated information that the organization is unable to make predictions, unable to have expectations, unable to form strategies, unable to plan, and unable to stand down from constant emergencies.

Too many organizations and executives in today's world pride themselves on "being good in a pinch," or "working well under pressure." It's considered to be a value, sought after by companies that favor crisis management as their routine business strategy.

Unfortunately, no business can operate for long without any idea of its future direction. Without a goal, strategy, planned tactics, and a basically stable internal environment, the organization will fail.

The first step is to become aware that there's a problem. Knowing the problem exists, we can begin doing something about it. Seeing it as a problem introduces a very different perspective. Seeing the problem as the solution is entirely backward. Crisis management is not executive leadership!

Continual crisis conditions take over resources and time. That time should be used to build a business, improve the system, develop new products, increase market share and so forth. Instead, we hear people say they don't have the "time" to plan for the future, they're too busy "fighting fires."

Only a small percentage of crises are impossible to predict. We acknowledge that in most contracts with an "act of God" clause. It's because a crisis should be a rare exception, not a routine part of a basic process. And so, one way to diagnose the problem is to determine how much time is set aside for planning and prediction.

We can form a general rule that the amount of crisis management in an organization is the inverse proportion to the amount of planning. The less planning, the more emergencies. The more planning, the fewer crises.

To say we have no "time" to spend on planning for the future is to be dangerously distracted. The inability to plan is a core failure in and of itself. Lack of planning is the cause, not the effect! It isn't that emergencies are preventing the planning, it's that lack of planning is causing the emergencies.

Of all the survival and adaptive capabilities we have, our planning ability is the highest value. Before all else, we should ensure that we have the time and resources to make plans. If we can't, then everything else should take a lower priority to reinstating those resources and that planning time.

Customer Disservice

In these current turbulent economic times, I am recommending my clients engage their customers even more. I am devoted to building client relationships to allow you to build your business.

In recent editions of my exclusive newsletter for past and present members of my Mentor & Coaching Programs, I have recommended, among other things, that we need to:

• Provide value to everyone you know whenever we can. Ensuring that people think of you first before all others. Be visible!
• Offer your clients and prospective clients as many options as possible for them to be able to do business with you. That way their decision is how they might use you rather than whether they engage you. 
• The organisations I am seeing doing the best are the ones with the most steadfast customers. This type of client is the consequence of service and relationship quality, not merely product superiority.
• The better your relationship with your clients, the less chance they will defect from you to the competition.

Today, one of our largest financial institutions displayed exactly the opposite in customer service.

My Mother has a very small mortgage with a Credit Union in Brisbane. They asked her to provide proof that she had insured her home. Off to her local Suncorp Branch to obtain a copy of the current insurance certificate to fax over to the Credit Union.

"Why do you need this?" was asked with a tone similar to the Head School Mistresses of yore.

"The Credit Union asked for it to be faxed because they finance the mortgage."

"I see."

Suncorp currently carry all of my Mother's insurances and, they also have all of mine -- which are substantial!

A printout was handed across to my Mother without even the simple offer to fax it to the Credit Union for her. No one considered that it may have been a chance to chat more with my Mother, build rapport and maybe a relationship, whereby Suncorp could then have asked to quote on her mortgage.

Walking next door to the Post Office, she was charged $4.00 for the first page and $1.00 for every page thereafter to send this facsimile transmission. I won't start with how egregious that type of pricing by the Post Office is for outgoing faxes.

I have stated many times before, that no opportunity is ever lost; if you fumble a chance at business (especially in these current times), be assured your competitors will be on your heels and pick it up, immediately. Why is it that some organisations strive to deliver the epitome of quality and service while another believes good enough is enough? The reason is you and me!

Tolerance of mediocrity is a corrupting philosophy. As we permit expectations to deteriorate we encourage standards to conjointly degenerate as well. Does your organisation base its reputation and responsiveness upon what is right ethically or what is expedient financially?

Suncorp can be assured that I will be contacting a broker tomorrow to obtain quotes on transferring more than $8,000 in annual insurance premiums!

Even Dakota was horrified with the lack of customer attention.

 

Ric Willmot

Performance Appraisals Fail

Finally, my words are being heard; and are confirmed by Dr. Samuel Culbert, professor of management at UCLA.

For years I have been stating that performance appraisals have not been providing any significant benefit to organisational performance. My experience as a CEO, General Manager and owner of corporations has been that the standardised performance appraisal did little to help the organisation or the person.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article, "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" and it offers seven reasons why this limited thinking has to be abolished. So rather than just listening to me, here is another perspective to support my advice to you.

Ric Willmot

Erratic ramblings on HR & employment

What does workforce planning really mean? Talent management? Recruitment and retention?

Could we amend our thinking around what retention stands for?

Bernard Salt spoke at the recent "State of the Industry" dinner for the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association in Melbourne, at which I was a special guest of CEO Julie Mills. Bernard recounted a story whereby a lawyer had in years previous, lamented at how they would invest considerable time, resources, training, development, etc., into graduates with the expectation that these new recruits would become long-term valuable members of the firm.

Of course, Gen Y being what they are, head for the UK where the wages are wonderful, the currency exchange rate is even better and life is a lark with travel, booze and parties. Bernard bumped into this same law firm partner a fortnight ago and he chuckled how a lot of these young law graduates had been retrenched due to the economic downturn, and were emailing him with their availability for re-employment at his practice.

Could we consider the word, retention, to infer that although employees may leave, the relationship is at such a level of trust, liking and respect -- that they will come back when ready?

Baby Boomer's are retiring. I wonder how delighted they might be if you were to offer them the opportunity to return after an initial "retirement holiday" to become mentors and coaches for other employees at your firm? Retaining them so you and your people can have access to their "smarts".

Do you really need to replace someone when they leave? Maybe that particular role could be absorbed by sharing it with a few existing staff? It could become a job share? Maybe it's only a part-time role now. With the changes in technology, you don't need a full-time person with all the associated costs. It may well be the work could be completed by a remote employee, working from home with flexible hours.

When Mothers retire from the workforce -- could you offer them opportunities for sporadic employment after they have settled in to their new full-time role?

We all enjoy perusing exciting menus in restaurants. How can you create an exciting menu of job roles, opportunities, challenges, compensation, remuneration, etc in your business?

What if we, as employers, stopped thinking in terms of "jobs" but rather "careers"?

No to "one size fits all" ... Yes to "Career Customisation".

No to full-time employees ... Yes to a "Working Parents Toolkit".

No to focus on the jobs ... Yes to developing your "bench strength".

No to rigid dimensions and employees as a "resource" ... Yes to "pragmatic loyalty".

No to the shackles of past employment practices ... Yes to the (insert your company name here) Alumni.

What if we viewed our employees as clients of the firm?

What if we created a database for "best fit" internal clients to operational requirements?

What if we "talent-pooled" with other organisations and formed "employment strategic alliances"? 

What potential might this have for your business?

Might it help to alleviate the skill shortage?

Might it improve your ability to retain access to good people?

Might it promote employee loyalty to your business?

© Ric Willmot 2008 All rights reserved

Executive Wisdom Wisdom Business College

The Executive Wisdom Business College is now open for registrations for both Australia and Dubai.

Dubai UAE: February 1-3, 2009

Brisbane QLD: February 10-13, 2009


Components of the College

Three days of intensive interaction with me and a very small group of colleagues. Plus the option of attending the Day 4 Immersion Session. There will be over 28 hours of work, discussion, learning, and fun. We will enjoy some social activities, some meals, and a large amount of pragmatic work on individual issues.

The Business College Manual is more than 200 pages, containing templates, forms, guides, aids, articles and slides used and discussed in the program. You also receive seven CDs from the Series One Teleconferences, covering aspects of networking, sales, fees, time management and more.

Never before have I created an experience like this, combining intensive workshop instruction and practice, with comprehensive support materials in both print and audio formats.


Here’s what’s in it for you

These are just some of the aspects, attributes and areas that will improve as a result of this experience, and thereby increase sales and profits for your business:

• Create your business value propositions
• Develop a definitive brand
• Create influential and valuable marketing collateral
• Create more successful business proposals that win more sales
• Expand business continually and gain referrals repeatedly
• Understand the psychology of business negotiations to improve your sales and business outcomes
• Make more sales, gain more clients, generate greater revenues and attain higher profitability
• Learn how to network smart to achieve real business results in less time
• Understand how to make strategic alliances work better for you
• Identify the best diagnostics that provide you with the most valid and useful feedback to manage your business
• Learn how to implement those diagnostics that provide direction and a positive impact for your business
• Get better business results when dealing with people by understanding the psychology of human behaviour
• Understand the secrets of exemplary leadership and masterful management that make business easier for you
• Maximise time efficiency
• Learn how to work with the media
• Understand how to make life balance work in your every day
• We will have realistic simulations and role-plays during the program. We will replicate what you actually face at work every day.

Here's what others have to say about the College ... 

Graduate, Joe Therkelsen Manager of WorkCover Queensland, Toowoomba

Download Brochure

Graduate, Kathleen Armstrong of KAC Consulting, Queensland

Register online via the Executive Wisdom Website

What Manly taught us about people development

... With apologies to non-Australians. The "Manly" referred to is my team that won the National Rugby League Grand Final on Sunday. I am a VERY happy man.

Throughout my career as an accountant, financial planner, CEO and management consultant, I’ve been witness to the internal workings (up close and personal) of approximately 500 organisations. My experience tends to have me believe that substantially most and sometimes nearly all, ‘Development Investments’ are spent on remedial assistance and training with meagre pittances directed at the ‘Super-Stars’.

Manly won the NRL Premiership on the weekend by an all-time Grand Final record margin (40-0), overtaking the 38-0 win when Easts defeated St George. This Grand Final victory by Manly has been three years in the making by coach, Des Hassler.

The Manly Sea-Eagles did not spend all of their resources and training on the weakest or lesser value players. They developed their performers who showed the true potential of being A-Grade Stars with a driving ambition to be Premiers. Developing your best players to become superstars is significantly more productive and valuable than developing fifth-grade players to become third-grade or perhaps even second-grade players.

I am not advocating the abandonment of investments in the training and development of fifth-grade players in your organisation. And, I am not saying that you should abstain from efforts to assist every employee to get better at their job.

However, I am asking you to recognise that most training is nonsensically inclined to the average performers or even inferior performers, while the superstars in organisations are frequently exempted from training & development on the grounds that “It’s not needed or necessary for them”. That is a fair call: that training isn’t necessary for them, they need much better developmental opportunities because they are already so good.

The HR Manager or Training Manager should make the superstars a top priority for ongoing development. This is achieved by implementing justly demanding first-class development for leaders and standouts, and that nearly always requires the engagement of an external source (like me).

The inexorable necessity in all of this is that the worst of the non-performers have to hit the road.

The mission of any business is not full employment but the attainment of strategic objectives. For vibrant, growing businesses, those objectives can’t be realised with a bench full of weak reserves.

I’ve been mentoring Directors and Partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers on an ongoing basis for over two years. They appreciate that you’re never so good that you cannot get better.  I enjoy prime performance from my clients, my toys and myself. And, with that in mind, it’s time for me to go and hit the road with a classic piece of machinery that performs exceptionally well.

Give me a call if you’d like me to help your star performers get even better.

© Ric Willmot 2008 All rights reserved.