Red Ladder

Goal Setting Helps Organization Get Off To Fast Start

Most of you who have read my blog or other articles that I have written know that I am a big fan of goals. Why? Because goals make hopes and dreams concrete. Plus, there is something about writing down what you hope to accomplish, and by when, that creates momentum and energy around them. If you also include key measures, then the likelihood that you will successfully achieve your goals goes up significantly. Share them with someone who will hold you accountable and you are well on your way to success.

One of my clients, a vice president for a large financial services company, told me that this year his organization was off to a fast start, the fastest start that he could recall in a long time. When I asked him what was different this year, he indicated that it was the fact that the company moved the date when their 2007 goals needed to be finalized, from February 2007 to November 2006.

The result? Everyone knew what they were supposed to focus on allowing them to get straight to work once the new year was upon them. Now that's smart business.

Success Tips: 1. Plan your work early then work your plan. 2. Remember to inspect what you expect to ensure goals are achieved in a timely fashion.

You Got Them on Board, Now How Do you Keep Them? Think Inclusion.

When asked, most leaders can tell you what their company has in place as far as their recruiting, hiring, and retention practices. Most companies seem to have solid recruiting and hiring practices but things often begin to unwind when close scrutiny is placed on retention practices.

A critical component of retention are a companies inclusion practices and policies.  When asked about inclusion, most leaders get that funny look in their eye. You know the one I'm talking about. What planet are you from and what language are you speaking? Oftentimes they have a one dimensional viewpoint and confuse the concept of inclusion with being EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) compliant or with diversity. But inclusion is different.

What's the difference between diversity and inclusion? Diversity defines the variety of differences we bring to an organization. Most people are typically able to correctly identify those differences as race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, language and disability. However, these differences also include experience, work style, job function or other personal attributes. 

Inclusion can be defined as those actions taken to ensure that everyone's voice is heard within an organization and those actions that help ensure that everyone is able to achieve maximum productivity. Inclusion should be an important component of your retention practices because employees that feel heard are more likely to stay to stay and they are more likely to be productive.

Most organizations have acknowledged that the pool of skilled candidates continues to tighten. Inclusion can be an important part of overcoming this labor pool shortage.

No matter how you slice it, inclusion is a practice that can pay big dividends.   

Success Tips:

1. Audit your organizations diversity and inclusion practices. Determine what changes will produce the greatest impact and then put them into place.

2. Attend a seminar or training event put on by your local human resources organization to learn more about current thinking on these topics.

3. Reside in the Twin Cities? Then consider attending The Woman's Club of Minneapolis luncheon series, Diversity and Inclusion - It's a Journey, Not a Destination.  Learn more at www.womansclub.org. 

What's Your Biggest Company Challenge?

A recent Red Ladder poll asked respondents to complete the following statement: The biggest challenge that I am facing in my company right now is...

The responses were as follows: 

* Failure to achieve goals 24%

* Low morale 20%

* Negative Culture 20%

* High turnover 16%

* Other 20%

What is the biggest challenge that your company is facing? How does this impact sales? Customer service? Your employees? And more importantly, what is your company doing to address these issues?

Identify your greatest challenge and put a dollar value on what it is costing your company in terms of lost revenue, increased service costs, increased training costs, increased recruiting and retention costs, or lost sales opportunities. Then earmark a percentage of that figure and use it to put an improvement plan in place.

Success Tip: Not sure what the greatest challenge your company is facing? Conduct an organizational survey. Contact us at info@redladder.com to facilitate an organizational survey or if you'd like to discuss other ideas for resolving your organizational challenges.

Professional Development Key to Employee Retention

I was recently invited to attend a motivational conference as a guest of an organization that I do business with. During lunch, I introduced myself to the people at my table, and engaged them in conversation. I wound up facilitating a discussion regarding the key issues they face in the workplace today. Three issues surfaced again and again during our discussion.

1. Balance - all of the attendees acknowledged that they and their work colleagues were putting in more time on the job and having less personal time for family and outside activities. 

2. Stress - all of the attendees indicated that they were struggling with managing growing expectations about doing more work with fewer and fewer resources.

3. Retention - several of the attendees indicated that they fear losing staff, including high-performing team members, due to burnout and demotivation in a constantly changing, high demand work environment.

When I asked the attendees what drew them to the conference, they all indicated in one way or another, that they were there to decompress, get re-energized and gain new ideas to bring back to the workplace. The cost of the conference? A minimal $199. Benefit to the attendee? Priceless.

Success Tip: establish a professional development budget and then use it. Think you can't afford to send staff to seminars or classes? Consider hosting a lunch and learn or a tele-seminar. For ideas, go to: http://www.redladder.com/speaking.htm/schedule.

Handling a Problem With a Boss

Conflict resolution is always challenging but even more complicated when it involves a boss-subordinate relationship. I was recently featured in an article on this topic. Read the article here: http://www.startribune.com/1759/story/687009.html.

Here are some tips on how you can successfully handle an otherwise uncomfortable situation.

Success Tips:

1. Try to work things out directly with your boss or supervisor first before involving others within your organization. This does not mean that you shouldn't discuss the situation with a trusted advisor or coach to determine the best approach and then to do some role-playing. Write out your approach and practice out loud. This helps build confidence for a potentially uncomfortable conversation.

2. Find a neutral meeting place. A conference room or other private area is best rather than meeting in your boss' office. This will help to level the playing field and put you on more equal footing.

3. Manage your emotions. Don't schedule a discussion if you are still angry or on the verge of tears. You want the focus on the issues, not your emotions. And, because this is your boss or work colleague, it's important that you preserve the relationship no matter what the outcome.

4. Stick to the facts. Don't make accusations. Instead, present the issue and be prepared to corroborate your statements with specific examples.

5. Listen with an open mind. There are always two sides two every issue. Use this as a learning opportunity and be willing to own your part of the issue.

6. Be part of the solution. Come prepared with ideas on how to resolve the issue but be open to input. This will show that you are serious about the issue and that you are committed to doing your part to work things out.

Alternative Paths to Career Development

In a recent poll*, respondents were asked, "When it comes to training or professional development for me or my staff, I am most likely to use the following:"

__ conferences or seminars   __ tele-classes   __ executive coaching   __ degree or certificate programs   __ webinars   __ all of the above

Almost 43% of respondents indicated that they use all of the above, while 28.5% use conferences or seminars, 14% use tele-classes and 14% use executive coaching.  No one indicated that they solely use degree or certificate programs, or webinars.

Interesting information? You bet. Consider this. The number of adults indicating that the Internet played a major role as they pursued more training for their careers increased 50% since 2002.  When it comes to adult learning, a policy of many times, many ways is key to achieving learning outcomes. In addition, experiential learning or training with immediate application is critical in creating mindset or behavioral changes.

What sources of training are you currently using? What other training means can your organization leverage to create a competitive advantage? How will this impact your ability to attract and retain talent while improving productivity?

*Source: Red Ladder, Inc. ** Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Success Tip: Conduct a training audit including a gap analysis to determine your organization's educational ROI.

Should Leaders Tolerate Poor Performers?

In a recent poll my company conducted, almost 64% of leaders that responded indicated that they tolerate poor performers on their team occasionally, noting that their willingness to tolerate poor performance depended on the situation and what other key issues that required their attention at the time.  Only 37% of leaders responded that they never tolerate poor performers, indicating that they take corrective action immediately. 

Tolerating poor performance occasionally is probably not a huge issue. However, if left unchecked for too long this can become a bad habit that is hard to break for both the leader and employee.

Success Tips:

1. Be clear on expectations.

2. Conduct regular one-on-one meetings where ongoing performance is discussed. 

3. Use a standardized scorecard to ensure consistency from meeting-to-meeting.

4. Provide one-on-one coaching and corrective action for those whose performance is sliding.   

5. Acknowledge and reward top performers and those whose performance has improved significantly.

Cultivating Relationships That Matter

People often ask me how I manage to build such great relationships with my clients. I tell them it's a combination of factors but there are three in particular that I feel are the cornerstone to my success. They are:

Product Knowledge: I have a commitment to staying current in my field which means adhering to a discipline of lifelong learning. I also work diligently to position myself as an expert in my field. 

Customer Focus: I make it my business to keep abreast of the issues and needs of my target market, particularly those issues that keep my clients awake at night. Then I proactively seek out or develop solutions.

Flexibility: I work diligently to accommodate the needs of my client. After all, I'm in business to help my clients achieve results and be outrageously succesful.

Once I have built a relationship with a client, I use several strategies to maintain those relationships. I always schedule a 30 minute client satisfaction survey/interview once the project has been completed. My goal is to ensure that I have delivered a quality product and service to the client and to obtain a client testimonial, to look for additional business opportunities and of course, to ask for referrals. Remember, it’s always good to strike while the iron is hot!

In addition, I look for ways to connect with clients on a regular basis. When appropriate, I’ll send articles, books, trends, statistics, and other items that I think will help my clients be more successful. (This is great for prospects too.) As a consultant and a speaker I always have my ear to the ground, and I use that to help my clients too. For example, if I hear something about their company (good or bad) I will be sure to share that with my client in an appropriate way. Recently, I received a call from someone regarding how impressed they were with a financial institution I was working with and as a result, became a client. I passed information to the COO letting him know what spurred that person to take action and become a customer. Helpful for my client? You bet. 

Building and maintaining relationships needn't be as difficult as some make it out to be. Take advantage of some of these ideas and you will be well on your way to cultivating relationships that matter.

Success Tip:

1. Identify your core relationship values and use them to establish and deepen client relationships.

2. Satisfied clients are a great source of repeat business and referral business.

Poor Customer Service Impacts Long-term Relationships

According to a recent survey by Opinion Research Corporation, 69% of Americans indicated that they were less likely to do business with a company after a bad call center experience. If you are sitting there saying to yourself, "So what? That has nothing to do with me." Think again. It may have everything to do with you.

Consider a recent experience that I had with a large regional bank.  After notifying me that my personal information was housed on a server that was lost or stolen from their mortgage division, I called their service center to determine my options for protecting my financial accounts. The telephone service representative had no information on my account alerting her to the fact that I was a victim of this issue.

Unfortunately, she was unable to answer any questions about the situation. Additionally, she told me their was nothing I could do but close my account and open a new one or I could monitor my checking account daily to ensure there was no suspicious activity. And, if that wasn't enough, at the conclusion of my call, she asked if I would be interested in speaking with someone in the mortgage area regarding consolidating some loans into my mortgage. Needless to say I hung up feeling angry at best and frustrated to say the least. Grrr!

No matter what function you perform in your company, keeping customers happy is everyone's job. Do your part and you will help your company not only retain key clients but build solid relationships that will last well into the future.

Success Tip: When a problem or issue arises in your company, develop a communication plan including key talking points for all customer contact points in the company, and distribute them as appropriate throughout your organization.

Executive Read: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I recently read,  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon with much interest. My review of this book was printed in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and I share it with you below.

As a consultant, my job is to challenge business leaders to think differently. Haddon’s book surprised and delighted me with his uncanny ability to allow you to climb inside the mind of lead character, Christopher Boone, bringing new meaning to the process of critical thinking and the power of keen observation skills.

In this story, you join Christopher in his coming-of-age journey where his coping skills are pushed to the limit, as he assumes the unlikely role of a detective bent on unraveling a canine murder mystery, no matter what obstacles are placed before him.His search for the truth leads to the discovery of yet another mystery, the resolution of which provides both a painful betrayal and a heartwarming reunion.For anyone that has ever felt like giving up, this book will challenge you to push yourself to find the courage, focus, and tenacity, through which you can achieve anything.

Success Tip: Expand your mind by reading books outside of your normal genre and be amazed at the number of new ideas that present themselves to you.