Too often today, managers – whether supervisors, directors, or even owners – see their role as the creator and enforcer of rules. “Be on time…,” they tell their employees, “or I will have to write you up.” “Be a team player.” “Show initiative.” “Call on more prospects.” “Service the existing customer.” And so on.

More time is spent on dealing with the problems caused by the behaviors of some employees, than on trying to get the best from all employees. The Gallup studies suggested that average managers spend 60 to 75% of their time trying to correct deficiencies and weaknesses, while the most successful managers spend 60 – 75% of their time mentoring and coaching the best employees to even higher performance.

How much time is spent documenting deficient behaviors – and, why are these employees still on the payroll serving as an example to others that this kind of behavior is tolerated and accepted? If you keep employees with recurring performance issues, it says to other employees that it is acceptable, no matter what you SAY about it.

I remember watching John Madden as coach of the Oakland Raiders. While other teams had thick binders of rules and penalties, Madden had only three – first, be on time; second, pay attention; third, come dressed to play. Madden guided the Raiders to a 103-32-7 record, seven AFC Western Division titles and a Super Bowl win.

Madden did not manage, he coached his players. He assumed that the players were adults. If a player could not follow his three simple rules, the player had no place on the team. Madden set high standards, repeatedly telling players “the only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.”

Players understood and responded, giving Madden the best winning percentage of any head coach in NFL history. He was a catalyst for growth and change for both players and the team as a whole.

Managing

Managing — based on several recent research studies — is a process rather than a title or role. It involves assigning the things to be accomplished and putting in place follow-up measurements and systems to insure results. While correcting inadequate performance is a part of the process, even more important is reinforcing and rewarding the correct performance. Repeated problems involving a particular employee must result in replacement of the employee. Repeated problems involving a part of the system or the repeated failure of employees in a single role, means the system itself requires correction.

Coaching

Beyond managing, coaching requires looking at our systems as a dynamic state. In other words, we are never satisfied with things as they are, but continually look for ways to improve the system and performance within that system. The best coaches make it a two-way process involving employees in the process of creating and implementing incremental improvements in all aspects of the business.

The best manager/coaches are always questioning why things are done this way. Are there steps we are taking just because we’ve always done it that way, even though it is no longer necessary?

Are You Manager, Coach or Enforcer?

Do you ever find yourself lamenting that “people just don’t take responsibility anymore?” If so, take a closer look at your role and you’re likely to find you are spending most of your time as an enforcer. If so, the need for change is urgent.

If you are spending most of your time in the manager role, you have a real opportunity to improve your results by incorporating the coaching role.

In any case remember, the world and our business continues to change – just as all living things change. When change stops, so does life.

Bob Hausladen

Time management has been a topic of conversation, discussion and argument for more than 20 years and little has been resolved. Terms like “workaholic” have come into our language with little in the way of accepted belief about the exact parameters of this “disease.” We decry the need to work longer hours or to take work home, but seldom even discuss the amount of time spent at work doing that which used to be done at home – calling doctors, making travel arrangements for our vacation, talking on the phone with family as well as various service providers.

In general, we are not very good when it comes to balancing our “work life” and personal or family life. Perhaps, in great part, this is a result of our application of older concepts which have become out-of-date.

At one time, the division was easy to see – you were either at work or you were not. Today the issue becomes more complex. If you take a call from your best customer while on vacation – is that work time? How about if you call the auto mechanic during the work day to see if your car is ready? Where do we draw the line?

Perhaps we need a new paradigm entirely. When we look for a rational way to allocate our money, we create a budget based on the priorities we consider most important to us. Could we do the same thing with our time? Instead of being concerned with the amount of time spent at work versus at home, perhaps more relevant is how much time we spend on those things we value the most – whether that time falls during what was called the workday or not.

This approach requires that we consider what is most important to us in life. Take a moment to answer the following three questions:

1) What would make me feel successful?

2) What makes me happy?

3) How do I want to be remembered?

They are not easy questions to answer and it may take some time. Once you have answered them, take each answer and determine what it takes, in terms of time and investment, to accomplish that goal. This gives you a starting point for allocation of your time. Whatever is important to those goals deserves your time. Those activities which do not fit the goals, must either be shed or reduced as much as possible.

While this may sound difficult, the process is simple (though not always easy).

1) Consider what can and should be done to further one of your goals. The time horizon here is flexible but not less than a month. Be prepared to revise this each week and to continue to look a month ahead on a regular basis.

2) Schedule, on your calendar, the time required to accomplish those tasks. These are your time blocks for your most important values.

3) Repeat these steps until you have blocked time for all your most valued tasks. Then, whatever else comes up must fit into the remaining time. You won’t ever get everything done that comes along – no one does. But your time will be spent on the things that are most important.

In my work with clients on this process, it generally takes some time to feel completely comfortable, but the impact on time is immediate. It takes some discipline and changes in habits to obtain the full benefit. As one becomes more comfortable with the process, the goals tend to become better defined and the focus sharpens.

Like most systems, it becomes perfected with use. As it does, you will experience the freedom that comes with knowing your time is being spent on what you value most.

“To build a durable, long-term business, the entrepreneur will eventually have to abandon the rules that got him/her started.” –HBR 1999

Successful entrepreneurs tend to build their business in a somewhat protected niche that allows each customer to be handled separately and each transaction to be unique. Growth puts pressure on the organization’s capacity, in almost every case, leading to an expanded workforce using the same methods to deal with a larger volume. The entrepreneur finds himself or herself working longer hours and responding to crisis after crisis.

Three studies of successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurial companies suggest that in order to survive growth, the entrepreneur must be willing to make fundamental changes and may require help in doing so.

1) It’s the process – a fairly consistent response to growth among entrepreneurial firms is to hire more people. At some stage, this is subject to the law of diminishing returns and is eventually counter-productive.

By the time the company nears 10 employees, the need for process and process reform becomes more and more critical. Defining process involves good systems-thinking and can increase productivity by an order of magnitude. The result is the ability to handle significant additional growth without increasing the workforce. This is essential to achieving the bottom-line growth required to meet cash flow demands of further growth.

In most cases, however, the entrepreneur is more oriented to ‘results now’ than the kind of analysis and systems thinking required at this stage.

2) Recruit higher priced talent – perhaps combined with encouraging early employees to move on. This may be the single, most difficult thing for the entrepreneur to face. People who were “there at the beginning” may not have the strengths needed by a larger, more complex organization. There is a tendency to stay the course with these loyal employees for long after the needs of the enterprise have outrun their abilities, and neither they nor the organization are happy with the situation.

This is a difficult area for almost all entrepreneurs and one which can lend itself to outside counsel and analysis. In the end, we do not help people by keeping them where they are ineffective. Spirits get crushed and people get hurt. Far better to face the situation squarely and give the organization and the individual a greater chance for success.

3) Become the Leader – in the beginning, an entrepreneur often does everything. He or she covers the roles of leader, manager and doer, with the biggest time commitment being the latter. When the company grows, however, their focus must shift, as first the role of manager then later to the role of leader, requiring more and more time and energy. According to Jim Fischer’s study, by stage 3 (20 to 34 employees), “the company’s vitality depends on a clear set of core values, a compelling vision/mission for the enterprise and a cultural focus that provides a strong baseline for how the company interacts.”

This stage requires that the entrepreneur effectively delegate both responsibility and authority and focus on the role of leader – that is, one who sets the vision and direction of the company. Failure to do so not only will retard growth beyond this stage, but often results in a falling back or significant survival issues for the concern.

Just like a living organism, a company must change as it grows – but in the case of the entrepreneurial firm, the growth and development must begin at the top with the entrepreneur, if it is to succeed.

“I don’t know which we need; I only know we need help…”

“It’s frustrating trying to figure out who we should be working with…”

“I don’t think any of these will solve the whole problem…”

“Doesn’t anyone do what we need?”

Ever uttered any of the above or one of a thousand variants expressing the frustration of trying to figure out what kind of help is needed for your business? Talk to a business coach and it sounds like whatever your problem, that’s the solution. Talk to a business trainer and it’s all about training. Talk to a consultant and you’ll find out that’s all you need.

Just to make it even a little more involved, there are also CEO Round Tables, Forum Groups and Business Improvement Groups which will offer to deal with your problems.

For many, the subtleties and distinctions between these various business services are lost. (And we haven’t even looked at how many varieties of coaches there are.) What we know is that our business has either problems or opportunities (two sides of the same coin) which would provide real benefits if we could just find the right help “for us.”

So this article is a brief attempt to explore the process of analysis which can help us make such a decision. It is a process developed for use by corporate Performance Coaches – that is – people whose role was performance improvement whether via coaching, consulting, or training – supplied either by inside personnel or outside resources.

This process involves four steps:

1) Identify the “desired state.”

Very simply, this is a matter of what you want things to look like down the road – the company, the market, sales, profits, etc. It is a Vision, Mission, and Main Thing expressed operationally rather than theoretically.

2) What is the “current state?”

For each element of the desired state, what is the situation today? If a particular sales level is in the desired state, what are sales today and what is the trend. If a particular level of customer loyalty or retention is desired, what level do you have today?

3) What is the “current performance?”

That is, how are the people who must do the work performing? There are a variety of ways to measure this, but one of the best is to analyze the work environment using a set of questions such at those identified by the Gallup organization in their survey of the American Workforce. [You can find these in the book: “First Break All The Rules”, by Buckingham and Coffman – available on Amazon or at your local bookstore.]

4) Finally, what is the level of “required performance” needed at the desired state?

This is probably one of the toughest, yet most essential steps. There is little point investing time and money to attain a level of performance that doesn’t yield what we are looking for. And that is where most businesses get off track.

If you’ve ever heard a business executive complain that training or coaching “doesn’t relate to the reality of MY business” – that’s what is missing – the identification of the level of performance required to reach the goal.

Once the four measures are available, we simply must determine what will move the current performance to the required performance level. Can we train people to operate at the higher level – usually this requires that the training be customized to our business rather than “off the shelf” – and that is what makes it effective. If it’s not a training issue, is it holding people to standards of performance – which is probably a coaching issue – or is it a matter of getting a consultant who can help us through a process change?

It sounds simple, which is not to say easy. Yet in years of working with these issues, I’ve never found anything better to identify how we must approach performance improvem

Peter Drucker always contended, that “leaders are not born, they are grown.” During the research and compilation process it became evident how right he was.

John Adair’s work was probably the first demonstration that leadership is a trainable, transferable skill rather than being an exclusively inborn ability. His work encompasses much of the previous thinking on human needs and motivation by Maslow, Herzberg and Fayol, and his theory adds an elegant and simple organizational dimension. His view of leadership included the abilities of decision making, communication and time management.

His Action-Centered Leadership model sees three primary areas of responsibility: Task, Team and Individual.

The common base among all the successful leaders of successful companies I looked at was the application of the individual strengths to a situation which responded well to exactly that set of strengths. In effect, it was at the conjunction of need and ability that successful leaders were found.

There was one exception – the ability to derive learning from experience and to continue to grow and change was common to all successful leaders studied.

In small businesses, the skill requirements of the leader and the focus required to be successful will change as the business grows. What works for a small entrepreneurial firm with less than 10 employees is unlikely to work when the organization reaches 30 or 50 or 100 employees. The leader must change and grow on a personal level if he or she is to lead the business in successful growth.

In fact, Jim Fischer (The Growth Curve), found that leaders who did not manage that kind of growth and change, generally had to lay off much of the workforce and return to a level at which their skills were effective.

In other words, if the leader doesn’t grow, neither can the business sustain growth. So how can you or I grow in leadership skills? If learning is the only common element among successful leaders, then learning must also be the key to our success as leaders.

Three methods have proven most successful – a regular program of reading, direct coaching or training, a strong peer group. Let’s take a quick look at each: The reading program: As far back as Earl Nightingale, those who have studied success have touted the value of a regular program of reading. Every business owner should have a library of relevant business books. By spending a half-hour every day reading in these books, one continues the growth process. Successful executives I have coached look to buy at least one new book every month to supplement their existing library. In this way they keep up with the latest trends and thinking on business.

Coaching or Training: There are a great many opportunities in this area. In looking for a coach or training, the most important thing is to find someone who can assess your situation and provide specific help accordingly. Today there are far too many who pass themselves off as coaches or trainers who actually provide the same program regardless of one’s individual circumstances.

This is not to say there is not value since any learning tends to be beneficial. But for the best return on your investment, a more specific approach is superior.

Peer Groups: A regular group of business owners with a structured meeting program can provide not only great learning, but will also provide more specific development opportunities. A peer group structure is important. The facilitator should have a depth of business experience in order to successfully match peers by their needs. In addition, he or she must be skilled in helping each owner leverage the experience of the group to facilitate their own learning.

Regardless of the process or processes selected, you must still retain the primary responsibility for your own development. You must have a good idea of your own strengths (and weaknesses) in the areas of decision-making, communication and time-management. You must also balance development in the three primary areas of responsibility identified by John Adair: Task, Team and Individual.

Only after seeing to your own development as a leader, can you hope to begin the task of developing your organization and employees.

This article is © Copyright Kentuckiana Business Forum 2008. You may not reprint or redistribute this article in any fashion without express written permission of KBF and the author.