Sep 30, 2009 | Leadership, Management, Uncategorized
Right? Probably wrong 90% of the time.
Superficial logic says when there are lots of people looking for jobs, it should be easy to find one to do yours, this may be true, but is it the right person for the job???.
A colleague of mine is looking for drivers, there should be plenty around in a downturn, but there are very few to whom he chooses to give the keys of his very expensive trucks, carrying perishable loads. When he finds a good one, the price has not gone down, but his costs in finding him have gone way up, as the volume of unsuitable applicants that need to be culled has increased.
Good times or bad, the greatest challenge is finding the right employee, not the cost of the exercise.
Sep 28, 2009 | Leadership, Management
It is unusual for a leader to apologise on their own volition, for anything from a minor misjudgement, to a major fluff-up, but when they do, it gives great assurance to those around that the person is human, and big enough to publicly concede a mistake, and the consequences of the mistake.
Goodwill is like money in the bank, you need to deposit it before you can draw on it, and an apology is a deposit with interest.
Being seen to be big enough to admit a mistake adds greatly to the ammo in the pouch when negotiating or leading, people are far more likely to take your word when they have evidence that you will admit it when you are wrong.
Sep 27, 2009 | Change, Leadership, Management
A short while ago I found myself in a fairly robust debate about the merits or otherwise of the various industry “marketing & R&D” bodies that have inhabited Australian agriculture for decades.
Dairy, meat, Horticulture, grains, all have, or have had, a range or bodies regulating and collecting levies for the so-called collective good of the “industry” .
It struck me towards the end of the conversation, which was getting a bit heated, particularly about the recent removal of the single wheat marketing desk, that the positions we were all taking bore the hallmarks of an argument that had happened many times, the various pros & cons recited almost by habit by all concerned.
Whilst they were expressed as considered views, informed by facts, what they really were, on all sides, were recitations of a view expressed many times by rote from within the boundaries of a point of view that was unlikely to change under almost any circumstances.
Next time you find yourself reciting a mantra, go back to the basic facts, consider who benefits, look at the location of margin and profit, and then think about the view you are comfortable with, genuinely informed by the facts.
Sep 22, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
There is a growing trend driven by the difficult times for management to set very big goals (Big Hairy Audacious Goals… BHAG),and hope to create the focus necessary to achieve the BHAG outcome.
Often however, the opposite appears to occur, as those in the organization charged with the execution of the plans simply do not believe the objectives are achievable.
Sometimes this is just that the objective is divorced from the reality of the competitive environment, sometimes it is simply a failure of leadership, but most often, it is just that the goals emerge from wishful thinking that puts off difficult decisions for a bit longer.
JFK said in 1961 “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to earth. ” This is probably the most famous BHAG of all. It is a statement in a single sentence that contains the three elements of a successful BHAG. It creates the vision of where we want to go, the measures of success are clearly articulated, and everyone recognised the resources necessary to achieve the task would be made available, because the President had committed himself to the goal.
No room for wishful thinking or bland leadership in that statement, and it was achieved. Would it have been achieved, had any of the three conditions been missed? Probably not, because it would have just been the wishful musings of the President.
Sep 15, 2009 | Leadership, Management
Two meetings in two days that demonstrated to me one of the key attributes of a leader.
The first, the group shut up until the leader said his piece, making sure everyone in the room knew he had a strongly held view. Everyone rushed to agree with him, despite the fairly obvious contradiction contained in his diatribe.
The following day, another meeting, another client. The boss made sure that everyone had spoken before he did, and he acknowledged where there were differences, and went out of his way to ensure that just because a view was different to his, did not make it any less valid. After a time, a consensus emerged through dialogue, and it was clear that the group would work its tail off individually and collectively to ensure implementation, in contrast the previous day, when any implementation would only have been achieved as a result of aggressive follow up by the CEO.
Real leaders often lead from the rear, the best are usually not the ones who provide what they see as the solution, but those who facilitate arrival at a solution.
Sep 13, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership
Transaction costs occur when you do something, opportunity costs, even harder to measure, occur when you do nothing.
Transaction costs are well hidden inside the activities that take place in your business, and short of introducing activity costing, are usually hard to determine with certainty. However, what is certain in every business I have ever seen is that they can be reduced, usually significantly.
It takes common sense, determination, leadership, and a willingness to break open the status quo to reduce transaction costs, none of which are easy, which is why it can be such a powerful competitive tool, your competitors will find it just as hard, and will often shy away.
Opportunity costs are even harder to measure, and usually it is only with hindsight that any measurement is possible, but then almost nobody wants to point out what could have happened if you had done something differently, and that is exactly why it is such a powerful concept to consider.
Ask yourself: “If we…………., what might happen?” as a part of your planning processes.
