Dancey Growth Group

Employee Relations

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Keeping Your Briefcase Full

Keeping Your Briefcase Full Image

My grandfather recently told me the story of a consulting engagement he had in 1972. My grandmother asked him, “What makes you qualified to be a consultant?” His answer? “I charge a lot and I come from out of town!”

After we finished chuckling, I thought about the mindset of hiring an outside professional to come into an organization. Are price and distance really the determining factors?

Price:

I’ve heard from multiple professionals in the industry who say that charging enough is critical as proof of value. The immediate thought when someone sees a low price is to question the value of the service they are getting. (I learned as much as I increased my rates trifold in the first six months).

In addition, people continually underestimate their own expertise. For many industries, there are no number of certifications and letters after your name that will convince a small or medium sized business owner that you are an authority worth hiring. More often, the social proof of referrals, testimonials, case studies, and fit in an organization will be the deciding aspect.

Distance:

When I think distance, what I really hear is ‘outside of the organization’. I have been on both sides of the coin-inside when an outside professional has come in, and outside as the ‘experienced professional’.

In both cases, communication is the key to success. Institutional buy-in, cooperation, and a true desire to teach or learn are the means to accomplishment in the organization. When all parties understand their roles, how the outside presence will affect them, and can see what the path forward looks like, then they can fruitfully move forward under the baseline expectations.

My grandfather also told me he brought an expensive leather briefcase to his gig. He said it was because successful people carried briefcases, and it was a signal that he was for real. Of course, it was completely empty. My advice though, is that you’d better be careful-any professional will be exposed in the long run if their metaphorical briefcase is empty.

Sorry Pop!

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Productivity Through a New Lens

Productivity Image 2

Improving personal productivity is a persistent theme of current thought leadership, ever present in blogs, podcasts, and books. (I wrote about my own personal productivity methods last year!)

And while this advice is helpful for individual growth, how many of us exist in a vacuum (that would suck!), completely independent of others for our own success? None of us do, of course. We are part of a community that relies on interpersonal skills to prove value, express understanding, and bolster the bonds that generate business.

You can be the most motivated, efficient, and streamlined individual, but if you are a demanding tyrant, all of your gains in personal productivity will be wasted.

The key is that one person’s demanding tyrant is another’s driven boss, and another’s goal-oriented win-at-all-costs manager. Every day we interact with different personality types, different learning styles, different attention spans, and different workplace settings. And our relationships fall across a wide spectrum of overlapping styles, types, and traits, making our self-awareness, perception, and empathy crucial to understanding how to work well with others.

What requires more attention is improving how we interact with clients, colleagues, bosses, employees, vendors, and partners.

Here are some ideas I keep in mind as I navigate my business interactions…

Personality Types:

Whether you’re a fan of the Myers-Briggs, Disc, True Colors, or any other personality test, the vital part is to recognize the indicators of your own personality, and equally as important is to recognize those indicators in others. Understanding how your behaviors coexist with others will offer compelling insights, allowing you to powerfully develop your network and collaborate effectively.

We depend on mutually beneficial relationships, and there is no better way to strengthen those relationships than with a true understanding of what makes people tick. Remember the last time you tried to discuss the details of a project with a creative person?

Learning Styles:

I learn by seeing and hearing a topic being discussed, but putting a book in front of me and asking me to retain the content is a futile task. I also listen to different audio content (music with no lyrics, music with lyrics, or podcasts) that demands varied attention levels to help me focus on my main task at hand. Right now I am listening to Miles Davis. (I guess growing up in a household with five siblings now forces me to employ constant noise to feel at home and comfortable!)

I know that this is not universal, however. Acknowledging how your team members (at any position on the field) learn best allows you to customize to the efficiencies and preferences, leading to better results.

Attention Spans:

I’ve been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast recently, hosted by Peter Shankman. His first guest was Dr. Edward Hallowell, aka the ‘Father of ADHD’, author of Driven to Distraction.

He discusses using your attention span, whether diagnosed or not, as a superpower, since the flip side of ADD/ADHD is an ability to hyper-focus on a subject that has grabbed your attention.

I see this in many CEOs, as these traits often manifest in a dogged pursuit of a business goal, all the while ignoring the naysayers who might tell you said goal is unattainable. As I work with more and more people, I’ve identified the need to tailor my business to maximize the output from each person.

Workplace Settings:

Do you prefer a darkened office, or a sun-drenched open workspace? The settings that are invigorating for one person may be overstimulation for another. While I like a consistently noisy backdrop, I realize that some people work best in quiet settings, or in a coffee shop with many distractions, or outside in a park.

In addition, businesses that have established a collaborative team atmosphere, versus those that are reliant on individual performances, need employees, managers, and outside consultants to factor these when any new or modified initiative is begun. Or maybe schedule a team lunch?

The main idea in all of this is that one size does not fit all. We all act differently, think differently, work differently and thus the need to support others in getting into their ‘zone’ for maximum productivity is an important tool for success.

And if you are reading right now, thinking, is he talking about me? The answer is yes.

What did I miss? What have you experienced?

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Your Pancakes are Getting Cold

Your Pancakes are Getting Cold Image

The other day, my seven-year-old son was at the breakfast table. He had a plate of pancakes in front of him, and he was making a noise over, and over, and over again, as he often does. While I tried to ignore it, my ten-year-old daughter told him to stop, then poked him to stop, then yelled that he was annoying and to STOP RIGHT NOW!

Take a guess and tell me if that was effective. Of course not!

What I explained to her was that she was focusing on how she felt, and what she wanted, and that was not the best way to achieve her desired result. She needed to pay attention to him, and determine what was important to him, in order for him to subscribe to a mutually agreeable outcome.

The same mentality applies to many business interactions, among them:

  • Sales
  • Management
  • Employee Development

In Sales, the key is to discover your customer’s frustrations, and offer a reasonable solution to address them. This is often called a ‘pain point’, but can just as easily be related to the effects of success as it can struggle.

In Management, the interaction with employees is best aligned when the employee incentives mesh with the overall company goals. And the employee should be involved as much as possible in this as a collaborative process. This is the most reliable way to have buy-in, loyalty, and a concentrated team effort.

For Employee Development, it is incumbent on the employee to put themselves in the shoes of co-workers, bosses, and customers to best manage those relationships. Each one has its own pressures, and the most effective way to agree on a positive outcome is to appreciate where others are coming from.

In other words, understand the other person, and use that knowledge to adapt your viewpoint and tactics.

As for my daughter, I try to have her see the world through others’ eyes. And it is a daily struggle to deal with two younger brothers. She could have refocused her brother by saying, “Your pancakes are getting cold.” And perhaps that would have worked. Because even at seven, he knows nobody wants to eat cold pancakes.

 

Thanks to Recipes Hubs for the image.

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Growth Metrics and Employee Measurement

As business owner’s strive to grow a profitable company, metrics and measurement are critical aspects of that growth. Employees need to be measured for quality of work accountability and incentive calculations. Companies need to be measured to set goals and plan for the future.

In a recent article for ESPN The Magazine, Pablo S. Torre and Tom Haberstroh discuss the future of metrics for the NBA: Biometrics. We see here how a organization with financial resources looks to optimize their resources by using blood samples, sleep studies, and nutritional habits, among others, to maximize the performance of their athletes. (I’ll leave the ethical question of how much personal data an employer should have access to for a different discussion).

For any organization, measurement is key. A manufacturer needs to know his production data. A salesman needs to know his sales history. It stands to reason that a sports team would optimize their most important asset: their players.

 

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Market Basket’s Super Mistake: Forgetting about Employees and Customers

Market Basket Image

The supermarket chain Market Basket is in a battle: between rival family members, between the new management and employees, and between the new management and its once loyal customers. (See a quick recap here.)

Families disagreeing with each other and taking sides against one another always happens, but rarely so publicly.

This time, however, the situation blew up, and Market Basket ownership risked its very loyal customer base and future profits. How?

  1. They underestimated company culture and loyalty. The new board miscalculated, perhaps irreparably. They did not realize how strong the ties are between the employees and their leader, Arthur T. Demoulas. It does not matter if new management thought he was spending frivolously. It does not matter if they wanted their own CEO to represent the new strategy of the board. What matters is the reaction of the employees and the customers.
  2. They failed horribly at Change Management. They did not have risk management or good communication plans in place for implementing the decision. Employee protests and boycotts have resulted in empty shelves, unloaded deliveries, and plummeting revenue, up to 90% in some stores (See story here). The employees love Arthur T., and their loyalty is rewarded with above average wages and robust benefits packages. It does not matter if those wages and benefits were representative of a sustainable financial strategy, or not. It does not matter if the new management issues a statement urging employees back to work. New management missed the boat on earning the trust of the employee base.
  3. They missed the boat on PR and public sentiment. The customer interaction has added another very powerful wrinkle here. Very rarely can a consumer have such an immediate and definitive impact on an ‘unjust’ corporate action. Usually, we watch and listen from afar while offering thoughts to laid off workers or feeling dismay at blatant displays of corporate irresponsibility. In this case, customers loyal to the idea of Market Basket hopped on board with the employees to fight the (perceived) good fight. We honk while driving by a protest in front of an empty parking lot. We take our business to other stores, as those competitors lick their chops.

The perception is reality in this case. The unusual us vs. them story here links together the entire corporate hierarchy: from CEO to stock person. The perception is of a well-liked leader ruthlessly fired by the rival family member who wrestled control away. The loyal employees stood behind him, with him, boycotting their work, risking their livelihood, all for the perception of the ‘right thing’. (See story here).

The counter story is of a family finally regaining control so many years after it had been taken from them, realizing the company’s financials were not on solid ground, and seeking to right the ship with their own leader.

Which story is the reality? It does not matter. The perception of the vengeful board, of the wronged leader, of the courageously loyal employee, yields the customer solidarity that we are seeing. And when perception and loyalty and public sentiment get tangled together? A company’s reputation is in ruins, revenues nosedive, and customers are lost, possibly forever.

The new board is currently reviewing an offer from Arthur T. Demoulas to purchase the company. But will it matter? How do you think Market Basket could have handled this differently?