On All Cylinders, Second Edition

Succeeding as an Entrepreneur and a Leader

Ron Robinson

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781949991949
• eBook ISBN: 9781949991956
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

This book will help any leadership team use their talents to nimbly respond to shifting demands and create a better future for their business and their communities by transitioning from traditional management structures to a system of leadership behaviors.

The attacks of 9/11 and The Great Recession created a new economy: the new normal. The result has been greater demands for management to unleash the power within diverse workforces and rapidly respond to market and technology changes. Business owners and management express frustration with their ability to accomplish goals with their personnel who seem apathetic about their businesses.

This book will help any leadership team use their talents to nimbly respond to shifting demands and create a better future for their business and their communities by transitioning from traditional management structures to a system of leadership behaviors. The components of that system include aligning the workforce, communicating rapidly and effectively throughout the organization, emphasizing ethical behavior, collaborating with clients and associates, and making informed decisions to improve operations and implement changes.

The desired result is to develop an inclusive and high-performing workplace and innovation of new products and services that expand market positions and respond to market changes. These elements were critical to the author's success leading an organization ready to close it's doors to a market leader, and can help any business improve performance and profits in this 21st Century new normal economy.

Chapter 1

Leadership System

If leaders expect staff to meet and exceed the expectations of their customers, those same leaders must respond to concerns and exceed expectations on behalf of their staff.

—Joseph A. Michelli,
The Starbucks Experience

Traditional Management

We are provided leadership skills through life experiences both at home and at work. In addition, certain personality styles lend themselves to qualities of leadership that assist in your leadership journey. In this chapter, you will learn a leadership system used by successful entrepreneurs that can assist you advance your skill set. I can remember as a child telling myself that I would never say to my children some of the things my father said to me. However, when I became a father I heard some of the same phrases coming out of my mouth! You may have similar experiences.

Just as we are shaped by our parents, we are shaped by supervisors and managers who guide us as we begin our professional careers. That is why it is important to think of leadership as a system of behaviors that can be learned and applied in everyday situations at work and at home. The good news is that there may be certain behaviors to master in today’s world of work but we have learned many of them along the way. We need to focus only on a critical few in order to have the total skill set required for pulling everyone together and moving your organizations into the future.

The traditional leadership system was created from a military tradition. For decades, organizations have experienced success using the system shown in Figure 1.1.

Within this system, managers are taught to plan and organize work for their employees and operations. They learn to execute plans by directing and following up with each person in their sphere of control to ensure that work is performed accurately and on time. Employees are expected to be good listeners and perform as directed.

21st-Century Leadership

In today’s environment of diverse cultures represented by multiple generations, a new form of management system is required. Entrepreneurs are being challenged to create a culture of pluralism that is collaborative and innovative to compete in today’s marketplace.

The manner in which behaviors are organized into a system of leadership develops a common culture when used organization wide. That system consists of the five circles shown in Figure 1.2, illustrating Alignment, Communication, Collaboration, Motivation, and Innovation. This book will review each element of the system and accompanying behaviors integral for your organization becoming the best in your marketplace. Figure 1.2 illustrates how you can lead your organization to think out of the box.

System for Succeeding as an Entrepreneur and a Leader

Alignment means the personnel in your organization know the direction of the company, its goals, teams’ goals, and how each supports the other. It means having data and scorecards that inform all staff of the progress toward goal achievement and making improvements. It means everyone in the organization can recite the vision, mission, and principles of your organization. The leadership behaviors that contribute to alignment include developing and sharing vision and strategy, planning and organizing around strategy, and linking associates with customers and strategy.

Communication means having the information needed to perform each person’s duties and accomplish their goals. It includes regularly scheduled meetings in which scorecards and plans are updated and everyone shares their activities and what they have learned. It also includes the use of technology to instantly update persons and teams with information to help them optimize their talents and accomplish their tasks and goals. Communication involves the leadership behaviors of listening before speaking, meeting regularly with staff, building trust, and modeling ethical behavior.

Collaboration means that the organization is organized into a team system in which each team’s members meet regularly to discuss ideas for solving problems and improvement in the way work is performed, products and services are enhanced, and new products and services are designed. Customer requirements are part of any discussion regarding work improvements as well as product and service enhancements and new product design. The team’s ideas are utilized, thus creating an innovative workplace. Collaboration relies on leadership behaviors of driving out fear, facilitating, encouraging new ideas, and delegating.

Motivation means there are both short and long-term rewards and recognition for accomplishments. They are contingent on improvements in organizational scorecards and goal attainment and can range from short-term incentives such as time off to long-term stock ownership plans. It means the culture has four times more positive feedback than corrective feedback. Leadership behaviors required for motivating the workforce include understanding human behavior, celebrating improvements and goal attainment, positive thinking, calmly correcting behavior, and being flexible in leadership styles with associates.

Innovation means the organization has created a culture in which people feel free to express themselves and are encouraged to think out of the box and create ways to reduce costs, improve productivity, quality, product performance, new products and services and organizational designs for future growth. The culture is created using behaviors defined earlier and aligned within the five circles. In addition, the following behaviors are used when creating a new product or service: Follow Principles of Innovation, Create Project Team, Encourage Purposeful Play, and Maintain Confidences.

Figure 1.3 illustrates behavior changes required to shift from a traditional culture to a collaborative and innovative culture.

 

Align

Everyone is engaged and aligned with your vision and strategy. With balanced scorecards your workforce is focused on your four pillars.

Chapter 2

Balanced Strategy

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.

—Aristotle

The beginning of my journey turning around the non-profit I was hired to lead involved beginning with the end in mind. Planning and aligning the people in the organization.

The ability to align the people in your operation with the goals of the enterprise is a critical part of leadership. Alignment includes the behaviors of a leader who facilitates the development of a vision and principles with a balanced strategy and goals with the team, develops a balanced scorecard to track progress, and organizes staff and tasks to best accomplish goals. A critical element of innovation involves inclusion of customers and other stakeholders with your team members when developing your strategy. The purpose is to ensure team members are completely aligned with their customers and your organization’s plan. At the very least, stakeholders to invite to the planning session should include key customers and suppliers.

A paper manufacturing operation went through a two-day process to identify their vision and mission with supporting principles. Their work was posted just inside the main entrance of headquarters. The executives found that many potential clients converted to new clients after visiting and learning how this supplier aligned with their values. The process for creating a living strategy aligned with your workforce is shown in Figure 2.1.

A balanced strategy includes a vision for the future, a mission for accomplishing the vision, principles defining ethical behavior and goals, and tasks identified for accomplishing the vision and mission. For example:

Our vision is to lead our industry. Our mission is to continually innovate through a process of Discovery, Designing Solutions, Implementing Solutions, Evaluating Results, and Continually Improving.

Our Principles:

1. Tell the Truth First, Last, Always
2. Do Right
3. Collaborate and Innovate
4. Open Communication
5. Teamwork at Every Level
6. Continually and Relentlessly Improve
7. Feedback
8. Fact-based Decision Making
9. Transparency
10. Encourage Risk
11. Have Fun

The key elements of strategic goal development involve consideration of the four pillars of an organization including Financials, Operations, Customers, and Employees (Figure 2.2).

Financials include both revenue and expense goals with tasks defined to accomplish those goals. Many organizations believe their task is complete with a set of financial goals and objectives for the year. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such an organization will have good profit margins while operations become obsolete, employees become less skilled, and customers change suppliers. Operational goals could include new or improved equipment, technology changes, and supplier relationships as examples. Customer goals have to do with increasing customer counts, analyzing customers’ purchasing habits and developing new clients while retaining desired existing customers. Employee goals are typically focused on enhancing employee performance, reducing turnover, enhancing skill sets, and recruitment of new talent.

Organizations focusing solely on their financials find the result to be discontented employees and inefficient operations. They may reduce costs but typically lose market share in the process.

Just as misdirected is the organization focusing solely on customers. It may experience market gains but be unable to remain competitive because of poorly maintained operations and low margins. It takes focus on core components of the organization (its four pillars) in order to increase innovation and competitiveness in today’s marketplace.

If your strategy does not consider operations with goals for change or improvement, customers with goals for retaining current customers, and attracting new customers and goals for retaining and improving performance of your hu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Leadership System
• Chapter 2 Balanced Strategy
• Chapter 3 Organized Staff
• Chapter 4 Getting It!
• Chapter 5 Team Template
• Chapter 6 Effectively Expressing Messages
• Chapter 7 Encourage Ethical Efforts
• Chapter 8 Create an Open Climate
• Chapter 9 Generate Great Decisions
• Chapter 10 Think Positively
• Chapter 11 Managing Consequences
• Chapter 12 Flexibility
• Chapter 13 Proven Principles of Innovation
• Chapter 14 Organizing and Managing Innovation
• Chapter 15 Creative and Confidential
• Case Studies
• References
• About the Author
• Index