Organizational Insight Washington DC

Everything around us is usually happening so fast that it is hard to slow down long enough to find time to work ON the business because we are so caught up with the demands of working IN the business.

Sound familiar? The big job(s) you were hoping for materialized and are now running through the shop. With the push to get the work out, who is thinking about where the next job is coming from?

Where will you find your next skilled cabinetmaker? Who is negotiating to keep health insurance affordable? Who is researching the next machinery purchase? And, by the way, how is morale and why are you losing good employees to a local competitor?

Not to mention some of the other challenges that aren't urgent enough to be on your radar screen. If your shop is busy now in this challenging economic climate — good for you — but maybe you'll find yourself with some excess capacity. In either case, how can you work toward making your business better, able to thrive — not just survive with the constant stress of a demanding competitive business environment?

Every business has areas for improvement and they can be broken down to The Three P's: People, Place and Plan.

When working with my consulting clients, I offer a business diagnostic approach I refer to as my Three P's tool. This one-page document keeps things simple and offers a straightforward approach to evaluating how your business compares to what is considered best practice.

The Three P's tool is based on these assumptions:

1. You want to grow the business as an enterprise, and you realize you need other people who possess skills you don't have to make that happen.
2. You understand the difference between asking "What work needs to be done?" and "What needs to be done to make the business work?"
3. Your perspective encompasses the business as a whole with many interdependent systems that function to serve a well-defined future, and stakeholders who will benefit from that future.

Take a look at your staff

How effective is your workforce?

Ultimately, it comes down to people and how well they execute the work. The role of leadership and management is to set the table for every employee to maximize their talents and contribution. That starts with a good hiring process and not compromising when filling vacancies or growth positions. Provide clear parameters that will empower your folks to make decisions that serve the company well.

Giving clear expectations goes a long way. Last time I checked, psychic powers weren't listed on many position descriptions; so don't expect this skill to suddenly show up. Until it does, the boss needs to let people know what is important and what isn't.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and good feedback provided in a structured, helpful way is what we call coaching. Coaching is answering the question: What does success look like? and creating a plan to help employees get there. Good coaching will help sustain performance and make for employees that are more satisfied with their work, and less likely to defect to a competitor.

Part of the retention plan for the workforce is having a rewards system that is effective for different types of employees, especially when the workforce today spans multiple generations. A dad with a special needs kid may really appreciate a flexible work schedule, whereas a single young woman may want the opportunity to earn some extra time off to pursue her hobbies. Whatever rewards you choose, the more personalized they are to the recipient, the more effective they will be.

Change the energy, change the culture

Place is another term for environment, encompassing both emotional and physical dimensions.

Are there any fans of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer out there? Cesar is constantly talking about energy. He references how dogs sense the energy of their owner; be it positive, negative, passive or aggressive. Dogs respond to dominant pack leaders, just as humans are drawn to capable leaders. Every workplace has an energy of its own — one that is unique and palpable. That energy is a result of the collective attitudes and interactions of the leadership and management reflected by the workers.

Stealing from the title of one of the Dog Whisperer's books: Be the Leader!

People respond to strong leadership so make your leadership contribution as good as it can be. Above all, people need clarity from their leaders, and they need to have a sense of personal significance.

As their leader, you can help your people by being decisive and giving them clear expectations. Make sure they understand how their work contributes to the profitability of the company. Ultimately, company profitability is one of the most important contributions toward sustaining a meaningful place to work.

Everyone appreciates having some fun at work and likes to work in a clean, well lighted and orderly environment. People need to be recognized and feel their contributions make a difference.

In a world of chaos, the workplace can be a welcome haven of order.

Mapping your company's success

There's nothing like a good plan well executed.

Planning is one of the important things we do that ends up playing second fiddle to the urgent things we have to do. It is easy for most of us to spend time pleasing the customer, fighting fires or working on parts of the business we enjoy most. Planning and having the discipline to follow the plan through to its completion or next iteration will transform the organization to what you hoped it would become. It will enable the vision of the company to be realized. Lacking that plan, your success will be determined more by luck and good intentions than by your will.

Is there a clear plan for the future?

Suppose you were asked what kind of business you were in. What would you say? Most of us would say we are in the woodworking business or the kitchen cabinet business, or we make wood components, or maybe the store fixture business. No matter if you are the owner or the saw operator (or both), I would like to offer a more useful response to help you think in a different dimension.

You are in the business of pleasing your customers with a business outcome that is predictable, repeatable and sustainable, even if the business owner were not there.

The "business of your business," so to speak, should be focused on creating systems and training people in standards and methods that will free the company from inconsistent results, quality problems, late deliveries and unhappy customers.

You will know you are successful when your outcomes are predictable.

For a five-person shop, the idea of the company moving forward without the owner is not going to happen without pain, if at all. The only way the 25- or 50-person company was created was by establishing some effective systems with a vision of creating a sustainable enterprise vs. just making a product that they thought they could sell.

You've seen the bumper sticker "Think globally, act locally" — not a bad way to think about your business. Use your vision to define the "global" plan and your system's refinement and creation to act locally.

Use the Three P's survey to the right of this column to evaluate the success of your internal business.

Ed. note: Reed Felton provides innovative coaching tools and effective employee feedback systems to small businesses. Prior to his role as a consultant, Felton worked for TJ Hale for 27 years — holding positions ranging from project manager to president/COO.

Choose a wide cross section of management and other employees to answer these questions. Your top team members may be a bit too optimistic with some of their responses. This phenomenon can be tempered by having nonmanagement employees participate, yielding a realistic representation.

• Ask your employees to answer all the questions in each of the three areas: People, Place and Plan, rating each question on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the highest level of competency or satisfaction.

• Calculate the average for each P area. If your average for each P area is 7.5 or higher, declare victory and move on! For those areas scoring less than 7.5, work to discover why and formulate corrective action.

Note the individual scores that may be dragging down the average, and this is a good place to start.

• To add to company credibility and ensure future participation, share the results with the whole company and make sure to follow through with decisions that were a result of the process.

Let me know how you are doing. It would be fantastic if I heard back from you about your experience with this process. For the company with the most compelling results, there will be a follow-up article featuring your company.

Send a summary of your results to Reed Felton at rfelton@wi.rr.com.

Take the Three P's Challenge

Rate the questions on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the best, and calculate the average for each "P" area.

Place: What is the place like?

• Is it fun to work there?
• Is employee turnover low? Is it measured?
• Is the facility clean and orderly with pride of ownership evident?
• Is the culture positive?
• How effective are communications up/down and across the organization?
• Is good performance recognized and rewarded?
• Is teamwork evident or just a buzzword?
• Is the company making a profit?

People: How effective is the workforce?

• Is the company able to attract and retain talent?
• Are the employees working at their strengths with a clear plan to advance their level of value to the company?
• Are the employees empowered to make decisions and is there evidence of it?
• Does the annual employee feedback process truly provide coaching which helps people improve?
• Is there an effective rewards system in place, and is it working?
• Does top management communicate well with the employees, and what is the evidence of it?

Plan: Is there a clear plan for the future?

• Is there a compelling vision for the company that helps all employees put their work in context?
• How well does the plan focus on the customers?
• Is a strategic plan in place covering a three-year time frame?
• Does a complementary tactical plan exist to guide the company on how the strategic plan will be executed?
• Does the strategic plan have each functional area of the company aligned with the vision; i.e. sales, project management, marketing, production and manufacturing?
• Are there clear KPMs to measure progress?
• Is there solidarity among company leaders committed to the plan and seeing that it happens?
• Are company leaders and all employees held accountable to the goals defined in the plan, and are employee coaching/mentoring systems (reviews) aligned with the plan so that employee goals support the plan?
• Does a solid succession plan exist?