Kevin is a Leadership Strategies, LLC partner and has over 20 years of operations and human resources management experience in the automotive aftermarket industry. Kevin has owned and operated multiple businesses and serves as an active Board member. He holds Sociology and Communication degrees and is certified as a Professional in Human Resources from The Society for Human Resource Management. Some of Kevin’s primary areas of specialty are organizational design/effectiveness, employee relations, executive search, training and development, coaching and mentoring, career transition, total reward system design, human asset analysis, mergers and acquisitions, employee assessments and human capital retention Internal competition is often used as an incentive to create excitement and interest with the ultimate goal being increased sales and profits to the organization. Many of these competitions involve exotic trips if region 1 beats region 2, for example, and throughout the contest period reports tracking how each is doing in comparison to the other are posted with bragging rights changing from week to week. Although more products may be sold and dollars dropped to the bottom-line during the contest period, some real long-term problems can result from internal competition. One problem is what we refer to as the silo effect whereby individuals, districts, and regions lose site of what is good for the company as a whole and begin to focus only on what is good for their silo. Another downside of these types of internal competition is that they can promote cheating and dishonesty by individuals whose ethics were never questioned in the past. Good people can become very bad people when internal competition becomes their primary focus and personal winning becomes their only goal.
Recommended Solution: We support competition as long as that competition is focused externally instead of internally. Organizations are much more effective and results are much greater when teams work together to beat external competitors rather than their co-workers. Incentives in the form of bonuses based on bottom-line improvement eliminate many of the problems that are caused by internal competition.
Many organizations make the mistake of knowingly or unknowingly rewarding the wrong types of activities. We are aware of one organization that rewards its buyers for purchasing distressed inventory that sits in warehouses never to be sold, so that the organization can receive six figure kickbacks from vendors that are then posted to their financial statements in some cases. Beyond the legal and ethical implications of this practice, the message that this activity sends to rest of the organization regarding how the business should be run is devastating.
Recommended Solution: Reward systems must be structured in such a way as to reward rightful behavior. Rewarding behavior that has a negative impact to the financial success of the organization cannot be allowed to happen. Reward systems that we develop always have a direct connection to the organization’s bottom-line results and reward employees who contribute to the organization’s short and long-term success.
Because we have been in a “buyer’s market” in the recruitment arena for the last 18 to 24 months, many organizations have had the luxury of having more resumes to review than ever before and as a result have perhaps become lulled into thinking that they can treat job applicants poorly during the employment process. In addition, due to the large number of layoffs that have taken place within some organizations in an effort to shrink themselves to profitability, many employees who were not affected by layoffs have been biding their time to jump ship. We have been predicting since June and have begun to see evidence that the resumes of many top performers within organizations have begun to hit the street. Recent research indicates that from 40% to 72% of individuals either have submitted their resume for consideration to one or multiple companies or are preparing to make their resume available to companies for which they have interest. We do not say this to scare organizations, but rather to give companies advanced warning of what is to come.
Recommended Solution: Re-recruit your top performers. If you do not have a succession planning process in place, quickly develop and implement one that will start the process of identifying your bench, thus enabling top performers to begin to develop toward their next internal opportunity. At the same time, you should identify current bench strength and replacements for fallout that might occur near term, while enabling your organization to see where gaps in staffing and talent might exist requiring outside recruitment efforts.
Recent events and financial results have convinced us that the economy is slowly turning around. The purpose of this article is to assist organizations that desire assistance to get ahead of the impending wave and to ensure just like those biscuits, that they don’t get “cooked in the squat.”
Because one of our areas of specialty is organizational effectiveness and financial performance, please contact us through the Contact Us button on the left of your screen or call us at 480-467-0344 and we would be pleased to clarify any of the above points.
Many organizations still source, recruit and hire the way they did back in the 1970’s. Unfortunately, that approach did not work well then and it certainly doesn’t work now. The old practice of only hiring within the same industry and going through a long and laborious interview process over several days or weeks, then requiring unanimous agreement internally, only to pass on candidates without further contact does not and will not work. Job seekers are much more educated and polished then ever before, they know the questions you will ask and how they will answer them prior to the interview. Polished candidates can and will become what they think you and/or the company wants them to be and they can adjust as needed. The only way to eliminate bad hires is to stop them at the front door, and a proper hiring process can do this for your organization.
Recommended Solution: To get to the “real” individual behind the façade, progressive companies are utilizing Psychometric Assessments as part of their hiring process that utilize Job Match Technology along with behavioral interviews, reference and background checks.
Meetings have taken on a life of their own and have become one of, if not the biggest time wasters for American businesses. We are aware of one company that holds meetings in which the entire executive group is invited and it is expected that each executive bring from 2 to 4 of their direct reports in the event they are asked a tough question they must defer to one of their subordinates. As a result of this wrongful approach, meetings often involve from 25 to 50 people whose time would be much better spent focusing on their areas of responsibilities. Individuals who we have talked with tell us that they know intuitively that this approach is wrongful, but they are fearful that if they do not attend, there will be a perception at the highest levels that they don’t care or worse, that they are no longer influential and that their opinion and involvement is not necessary.
Recommended Solution: Only hold meetings that have a direct customer affect. Meetings that do not affect the customer or the bottom-line of the organization should not take place. Immediately reduce meetings by 20% and only involve those individuals whose input and participation are necessary to make rapid decisions. Set one day per week in which no meeting will take place and watch your organization’s productivity increase!
Indecision is a cancer in American business. We have contact with individuals and organizations that appear to be caught in a malaise of indecision. When questioned as to why this malaise exist, fear of making a mistake and the lack of decisiveness at levels above the individual are the reasons that are most often given. The perceived need to “run it by Rizzo, or bounce it by Boomer” is negatively affecting how organizations make decisions and is in many cases are costing those organizations dearly in employee trust and morale, as well as financial results. Organizations tend to rush to get things done up to a point and then the malaise and resulting stall begins. We often see this with organizations who fail to schedule activities 14 days in advance, allowing them to take advantage of airline discounts when bringing people in from out-of-town. It has become acceptable not to make timely decisions while paying 40% to 75% more in airfares and accommodations.
Recommended Solution: Hire, train and reward people who are decisive and who have a proven track record of making good decisions. Ensure that all decisions have a time limit and that any person who cannot make good decisions rapidly or by the agreed upon deadline will no longer be allowed to delay or participate in decisions, while the organization moves forward without their input.
With the recent headlines regarding Tyco, Global Crossing, Qwest and Martha Stewart, business ethics and corporate governance have been thrust upon businesses forcing them to recognize and address the issue. Unfortunately, some organizations have reacted by charging their human resources function to quickly “pull together” a training program while requiring all hands to attend and signoff on an acknowledgement that they will act and perform their duties ethically. In addition, companies have developed elaborate statements and policies regarding the organization’s commitment to behaving ethically which is then posted on walls and within waiting areas throughout the company. The problem with this approach is that for ethics to work within any organization, it must start with the example that is set at the highest level within the organization. The “do as I say, not as I do” mentality does not work with regard to corporate governance. If the CEO is taking unnecessary risks with shareholder’s investments for personal gain, it is impossible to successfully mandate ethical compliance by others.
Recommended Solution: Ethics and corporate governance compliance and success do not work if they are merely additional programs or a plaque that appears at the entrance of the company. To be real and meaningful, ethics must be a way of doing business from the top to the bottom of the organization, without one exception. Ethical behavior must be seen and practiced as a competitive advantage for the organization overall.
Problematic organizations often have at their root problematic employees. Some organizations put up with substandard performance with the hope that the individual might improve, or that they may be transferred to another department or better yet to another division, or that the individual might on their own make a decision to leave. Many leaders and managers state that they are afraid to take immediate and definitive action on individuals with performance problems for fear of agency charges or wrongful termination litigation. The real root of the problem is the leader or manager’s fear of having to confront substandard performance and as a result, they would rather not deal with it in hopes that it will take care of itself. What often results is prolonged or increased poor performance and the perception of observers that the supervisor or company allows substandard performance to exist while not taking action. In some instances, this lack of action frequently results in loss of trust and confidence in leadership on the part of outstanding performers and in the worst case, turnover.
Recommended Solution: Take decisive and timely action on all substandard performance to ensure that the individual has been given the opportunity to improve and that a defensive paper trail has been established. Once the decision has been made to remove a substandard performer, it needs to take place quickly and professionally without a trail of destruction.
World-renowned motivational speaker Zig Ziglar in his book See You At The Top relates a story from his childhood growing up in Yazoo City Mississippi in which his neighbor’s cook, Maude, made biscuits. Ziglar remembers one occasion when Maude brought out a pan of biscuits that were no thicker than a silver dollar, he asked her what had happened to the biscuits and she replied that “the biscuits squatted to rise, but they just got cooked in the squat.”
Over the last eighteen to twenty-four months many organizations have experienced less than stellar financial results, corruption and fraud at the highest levels, downsizing and rightsizing in an attempt to make the organization profitable, and overall unrest and fear of what the future may hold. The good news is that many indications show that the economy is starting to turn and that organizations are starting to experience positive results, which leads to an expectation for a robust 2004.
Unfortunately, as we work with companies both small and large within every industry and business sector, we still see organizations that are “squatting to rise,” and if they don’t make some adjustments quickly prior to the economy’s complete recovery, they may find themselves “cooked in the squat.” This article will outline 8 action steps based on our observations and experience that if implemented, will enable organizations like those biscuits, to rise rather than being “cooked in the squat.”