Business Leadership Skills 01 (Jul 09 - Feb 13)

[winston]

Do You Think Managing Is a Waste of Time? By Michael Masterson

According to most "serial business builders," bad hiring and firing decisions are among the most serious mistakes entrepreneurs make. These include:
1. Not spending the time and energy to recruit the very best employees
2. Not paying close enough attention to an executive's performance
3. Waiting too long to fire someone

Think about the people who report to you. How would you rate them? Good? Very good? Excellent? Are they better than you at what they do? Can you think of anyone who could do the job better?

You can effectively manage only six or seven people. So when you think about it, your primary job is very doable. You have to find, train, monitor, and inspire no more than six or seven people.

Take a look at how you spend your time. How much of it is by yourself, working at your desk? If the answer is "most," you are probably not doing your primary job very well. If you spend 10 hours a day at work, at least half of that should be spent:
Looking for better people
Paying attention to what your key people are doing
Educating them
Rewarding them
Firing them, if necessary

Every great person you hire will make your life immensely easier and your business more profitable. Invest in finding and grooming great people and you will never regret it.

Source: ETR

[winston]

How Much "Envisioning" Should You Do? By Michael Masterson

BK, MN, BB, and I were talking about mergers and how companies are managed afterward. The doomed AOL/Time-Warner combo (and split earlier this year) came up.

This got very quickly into the question of how much forward thinking a CEO should do.

I won't carry you through the discussion. I'll leave you with our conclusion: A good CEO looks ahead, but he gives priority to shorter-term goals.

There are two reasons for that:

1. As the bottom-line guy, the CEO's primary job is to make sure the current year is profitable. That means he must give priority to those projects that will bring in profitable dollars soon, not later.

2. Long-term vision is based on long-term prognosticating, which is never reliable. (Over 70 percent of John Naisbitt's "Megatrends" predictions were wrong. The Wall Street Journal's technology predictions between 1958 and 1989 were 80 percent wrong.)

In takeover or turnaround situations, you must have three perspectives:
1) What the business could be in seven years.
2) How it will perform two or three years ahead.
3) What profits it will bring by year's end.

Look at all three, but make your first priority the shorter-term objectives. If you fail at that, you may not have a chance to work on longer-term solutions. Make the best plans you can and then, every three months or so, stand back for a longer view -- but not too long.

Source: ETR

[AirFlownAussiePork]

You may want to take a look at Servant Leadership. The phrase coined by Robert Greenleaf. Well summarized by himself

"The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."

"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? [1]"

[1] Robert Greenleaf, "What is Servant Leadership", http://www.greenleaf.org/whatissl/ accessed 25 Oct 2009

[winston]

The Cow in the Ditch By Michael Masterson


What do you do when you see a cow in a ditch?

Well, first, you get it out. Next, you figure out how it got there in the first place. Then, you make darn sure it doesn't fall into the ditch again.

In other words, when faced with a problem, deal with the immediate situation before you do anything else. Once that's been taken care of, find out what caused the problem so you can take steps to prevent it from happening again.

Source: ETR

[kennynah]

What do you do when you see a cow in a ditch?

i'd just slaughter it, easier now that it is in a ditch...and have sirloin steaks...

flow with the situation....plan for all scenarios and whichever appears to be profitable...go for it... in short... have sufficient contingency plans for execution....

[winston]

How to Hire Great People By Michael Masterson

LW, a friend and colleague, is a master of good hiring. His first hire -- an entry-level marketing assistant -- bloomed into a world-class marketing pro who is already running his company for him. The two of them hired another superb employee who helped them double their sales in one year. Now, the staff consists of four people, and they are doing as much business as it would normally take eight people to do.

It takes time and effort to hire good people, but it's well worth it. Here are the four most important things I've learned:

1. Make the commitment. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. You can't expect to hire great people if you spend just a few hours working on it. I don't like interviewing, so I have to resist the impulse to hire the first decent person who comes along.

2. Look for the right things. Intelligence is important. But I'd put it third on my list. The two most important things to look for are attitude and aptitude.

3. Flee flaws. Generally speaking, a job candidate is at his best during the interview. If something about him seems "wrong," don't ignore it -- especially if it concerns qualities that are important for the job.

I've found that the personal quirks that surface during an interview are like the tip of an iceberg. What you see is a very small part of what you will have to deal with later.

4. Don't worry too much about specific experience. Yes, it's good to know that the person you hire can do the technical work from day one. But on day seven or day 14, you'll wish you had opted for the better, though perhaps untried and unproven, prospect.

Source: ETR

[kennynah]

2. Look for the right things. Intelligence is important. But I'd put it third on my list. The two most important things to look for are attitude and aptitude.

I subscribe to this argument... although, intelligence is also an important "value" ...

4. Don't worry too much about specific experience. Yes, it's good to know that the person you hire can do the technical work from day one. But on day seven or day 14, you'll wish you had opted for the better, though perhaps untried and unproven, prospect.

i dont agree with this notion.... substantiated experience is vital... it is tried and tested... inexperience means more time and effort on part of employer to gear up the employee to speed in order to deliver the objectives. of cos, here, i am referring to skilled jobs and more senior appointments... for entry level jobs, obviously, one cannot place "experience" as a key consideration factor in hiring...

[helios]

GE Jack Welch wrote about e-Businesses, either you have:

www.destroyyourbusiness.com (DYB)

OR

www.growyourbusiness.com (GYB)

[winston]

5 Ways to Make Your Meetings More Productive By Michael Masterson

1. Start on time.

2. If there's someone with a reputation for tardiness without whom the meeting can't take place, schedule a briefing with him 15 minutes beforehand. If he gets there on time, use that 15 minutes to discuss the big issues. If he's 15 minutes late, he won't hold things up.

3. Distribute a short agenda to all participants the day before the meeting.

4. Set and enforce a strict time limit for each agenda item. Discussion should end when a specific action has been determined, written down, and assigned.

5. Every five or six meetings, ask for suggestions to improve the way you're running the proceedings.

Source: ETR

[winston]

An Essential Quality of a Good Leader By Michael Masterson

There are basically two ways to get the people who work for you, to do what you want. You can bully them into it. Or you can lead them.

The bully's method is initially effective, because it takes advantage of his superior power. But everything changes with time -- including the balance of power within a company. So, ultimately, it fails.

The leader gets what he wants through inspiration and persuasion. He has to work harder at first, because his method depends on gradually enlisting the voluntary support of his people. But he sustains his influence long after the bullies have been beaten.

Source: ETR