I
recently met with two entrepreneurs who had about one third of their staff performing
below what they expected.
Their
top employees are more experienced, skilled and care about their work and the
company. The less experienced and younger staff in question are less reliable
and have more of a 9-5 mentality.
The
two partners want to better understand what they need to do to have the lower third performing employees
behave and perform like the top two thirds.
The
company does home renovations and they work on several projects at a time. One
owner looks after sales and the other manages the projects and staff. Their
roles used to be reversed and their management styles are different.
The
partner managing the staff on the job sites has a more autocratic style of leadership while the other is more
democratic and diplomatic. The younger employees who are not meeting
expectations seemed to work better under the more democratic style of
leadership.
The
entrepreneurs thought that the younger less experienced staff members would
learn from the more experienced and skilled workers who are more productive,
produce better work and have better attitudes when it comes to putting in longer
hours.
My
suggestion to them was:
Learn how to adjust their leadership style to each individual and
situation
Learn how to train and coach the difficult staff to address
the performance issues
Set performance agreements with all employees with
specific review dates and provide coaching when needed
Set rewards and penalties based on the agreed performance
commitments
Teach the better performing employees to act as mentors or
coaches to the younger less experienced employees
Engage the employees in problem solving sessions to discuss how to improve
the work and continuously deliver better quality
Apply progressive discipline should the employees in
question not respond to the efforts to correct their behavior
In
times of good economic conditions as they are presently for these
entrepreneurs, a lack of adequate staff who can deliver what the customer
expects can be the biggest hindrance to organizational development and business
growth.
Strategic planning for leaders and managers
is crucial for business and organizational success, especially in the
fast-changing business landscape today.
The onset of automation and artificial
intelligence is expected to create tremendous change in the workplace and many
existing jobs will disappear and new ones created.
Thus, it is essential that business owners,
leaders and managers devote time to strategic planning in order to be ready to
meet the changes that are coming.
Trends can may offer opportunities or
threats to your organization. Are you ready to take advantage of the
opportunities that these trends and changes will offer? Are you equipped to
face the challenges and threats that the changing times will present you?
Strategic
Planning is for Everyone
Of course, business owners and directors
are responsible to steer the organization in the right direction. But all
managers need to spend time doing their own strategic plan for their
department. It need not be as in-depth a plan, but it should be done annually.
There should be a strategic planning team
at the directors’ level and managers can involve some of their team members.
This will make it a participative approach and be easier to implement the new decisions
and communicate the changes to all team members.
Trends
Trends can be researched to see what the
experts are predicting that can have an impact on your business. Trends in
various areas should be researched to see what could impact your organization
and department.
Trends can be classified by areas such as
economics, demographics, technology, marketing, innovation and more. For example,
two areas within technology that is being talked a lot about now is automation
and artificial intelligence.
Automation and artificial intelligence are
predicted to create massive disruption to the workforce in the coming years.
New jobs that don’t exist now will be created and many up to 50% of existing
jobs will disappear according to a recent
study by RBC.
Both automation and artificial intelligence
will greatly affect all categories of doing business no matter what industry you
are in, so studying the potential impact on your business and what to do to
prepare is essential.
Strengths
and Weaknesses
Considering the trends and potential impact
on your organization, it is imperative to assess your strengths and weaknesses.
These changes can be opportunities and others may be threats depending on your
strengths and weaknesses.
This is a great point of discussion for
your planning team and from there can unfold goals on how to act to capitalize
on the opportunities and face the threats.
Make a list of the strengths and weaknesses
in your organization or department and determine those that are the most
powerful in terms of acting on the opportunities and dealing with the threats.
Mission
and Goals
One you have done your research and
assessed your capabilities you can set goals for the organization and
department. This may also entail setting a new mission statement.
There can be one must
achieve goal for the organisation and then key goals set by each director
or manager for their respective areas.
Goal achievement must be planned and broken
down into action steps. The SMART
goal planning form can be used for this purpose.
Communication
the Strategic Plan
A plan is great, but it must be put into
action and communicated. Change and uncertainty can foster fear and anxiety in people
and the only way to counter that affect is to inform people of the coming
changes and provide training and support.
Large corporations have change agents who
assist the managers and employees in implementing and adapting to the changes.
This role falls on the shoulders of the managers in smaller organizations. Taking a participative and coaching leadership
style approach can greatly aid in implementing the change and making it easier
for employees to sail through any uncertainties.
Tracking
and Measurement
All plans and goals need to be tracked and
measured to see if they are working. Tracking and measurement mechanisms need
to be determined and reviewed on pre-determined dates for the planning team.
If things are not on track as planned,
adjustments need to be made. This is where problem solving techniques are
crucial for teams as everyone must be involved in contributing to the new
mission and goals. When roadblocks occur, employees need to be equipped with
the proper skills to solve
problems in teams.
The
Business Owner
Last week I attended the C2MTL conference on commerce and creativity
in Montreal and I met with a business owner who really impressed me. He was
directing a multi-faceted organization that operated in Europe, South America,
Canada and the US.
His organization has grown to more than
1,300 employees and he is concerned about how to have people keep learning and
sharing their knowledge.
After listening to his story and challenges
I suggested that what he needed to do was to put most of his energy to
strategic planning rather than running the day to day affairs. He responded
that that was exactly what he was doing and had managed to delegate all day to
day running of the business to his directors.
While this may not be possible for all
business owners, it is a good indication of the importance highly successful
business leaders place on the importance of strategic planning in this age of
rapid change and complex business operations.
