Leadership Lessons Blog

Business Management

As business owners, we are also responsible for hiring.  There are a whole hosts of steps to the hiring process, but none more important than the offer letter.  Offer letters, set the stage for what an employee can expect from an employer, but it also sets the stage for what the employer expects from the new employee! 

Offer letters must be coherent, informative, and legally sound.  In many cases, these letters must satisfy the goals of avoiding, reducing, or resolving liability. For example, it is in the employer’s interest to preserve the at-will relationship. Under the at-will doctrine, which is the standard in the vast majority of states, either the employer or employee may, subject to certain exceptions, terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any reason, or for no reason. Courts have found that statements made in offer letters and other written statements made to employees can create an implied contract that alters the at-will relationship.

In the case of offer letters, the most important thing an employer should do to preserve the at-will relationship is to include a disclaimer prominently in the offer letter. State courts have set different standards for how and when an implied contract may be created, and employers must make sure that the disclaimer contains the language required in their state. Employers should also have their legal counsel review letters.

A job offer letter could become a legally-binding employment contract of sorts, should the employee later dispute what you offered vs. what he or she actually received on the job. So, make sure that you can deliver what you offer in writing. (Consult legal council if you have any doubts about writing a job offer letter.) But do include as many details as practical in your job offer letter or as attachments or enclosures, so that your job candidate has enough information to make an informed decision. Remember, candidates might receive other job offers. Consequently, you might be competing for their attention.

Management and Leadership--Is management a profession?

As much as our business school educations thought they would prepare us for management, we soon learn that whatever might have been placed in a textbook is NOT reality.  Strong management skills are learned though experience. 

A classroom is a place to share management practices, debate the latest styles of management, but it is not the place where managers learn how to be socially responsible business leaders.  The recent BP disaster on the Gulf Coast is a good example.  I'm sure the BP CEO is a great guy, but his choice of words and his immediate response to the disaster was not what people needed to hear. 

Business leaders are under attack as a result of their response to the economic crisis.  Many have been criticized for putting their own interests ahead of those of employees, customers, and even stock holders. 

It's time for business manager to take an inventory of what they need to lead!  Typically, business managers are promoted based upon their functional expertise.  Is it fair to assume that if you are a wonderful sales person, you can easily make the transition to a great sales manager?  A manager must have the ability to integrate skills that help to define effective and strong leadership ability as well as functional knowledge. 

It took an educational crisis in the United States before curriculum change occurred.  It may take the same effort to engage our prestigious, business schools to begin looking at how they prepare managers to lead.  In a recent article written by Richard Barker for the Harvard Business Review, he writes, " The key is to recognize that integration is learned rather than taught:  it takes place in the minds of MBA students, who link the various elements of the program.  Business education is not one-size-fits-all, and, most important, it should be collaborative rather than competitive." 

 

Leadership Lessons: The Responsibility of Management Consultants

I've been in business as a management consultant for 10 years.  Most of my training evolved from working with and for great leaders and great companies.  Today, many business leaders are faced with challenges that go beyond what is taught in business school.  Each day, business leaders face both financial difficulties as well as internal difficulties.  As a management consultant, it can be easy to simply focus attention on helping clients reach their financial goals, but if that is the only focus, then the consultant really isn't doing their job. 

As individuals brought in to companies to assist them, management consultants should also be working with executives on improving their social performance.  We can run around letting everyone know that the sky is falling, or we can maintain a sense of decorum that helps workers weather the challenges. 

The recent economic crisis continues to cause distrust with business leaders and consumer confidence.  How then, should business leaders regain public trust?  Peter Drucker, in many of his mangement and leadership books said this about management consultants.  "They should think of themselves as diagnosticians rather than technicians."  The best way to help a client improve its performance is to build on the strengths of its culture.  Help organizations face those things that they are not doing well and create action items with strong accountability to turn poor performance around.  This doesn't always mean shying awa from telling clients the truth if their culture needs improving.  The management consultant neets to be the omnisicent observer that helps guide a company back to its roots, its mission and its vision for the future. 

As we continue to come out of the recession, companies will have to change how they are doing business.  Consultants need to guide company leaders to  gain public trust and social acceptance.  Management Consultants must be change agents.  Peter Drucker's sage advice is a roadmap to success! 

Leadership and Communication

Recently, President Obama has faced a deluge of "angry" people who don't feel his health care initiatives fill the void.  No this isn't going to be a blog about health care reform, but it is going to be a blog about communication and communication spin.  If you've closely watched the news and the media, the administration and the democratic leadership have spent most of last week clarifying what's in the health-care reform bill and what isn't.  The one thing that everyone can agree upon is that there is a great deal of confusion on how to interpret what is being proposed.  As a result of the confusion, the President's approval ratings over the past few weeks have suddenly taken a down turn. 

What I want to focus on is the importance that communication should play in the delivery of any important change.  Oftentimes, leaders take for granted that their own constituents (their employees) will be able to fill-in the gaps and understand what the new idea means and how it will affect them and their customers.  We need to recognize as leaders that most ideas and thoughts about strategic moves for a company are decided upon well before it it introduced to the "implementors" in companies.  Leaders have already debated direction, strategy and goals and have finally settled on a plan for moving the company in a new direction. 

So what goes wrong?  Most often, the ingredients are missing that help employees fill in the blanks.  Employees did not have the benefit of working through a strategic move.  They don't have the background that led to the decision so they need to go through the same processing that the executives have undoubtedly gone threw months earlier.  We sometimes forget how long it takes for the appropriate strategy to be set to kick-start a good idea.  Consequently, we need to ensure that our communication plan includes time to build in questions and answers as well as the reasons for why certain decisions have been made.  We need to ensure that everyone that receives the message understands the message so that they can articulate the meaning framing it in the appropriate light so that employees can wrap their arms around what and how they are going to produce what they are being asked to produce.

The spin-doctors in Washington are great at picking up on ambiguity and making that ambiguity a detriment or a positive for government.  We need to make sure that we don't leave room for "spin-doctors" in our own organizations.  Eliminate the ambiguity and you eliminate the rumor-mill and you eliminate the cost associated with communicating multiple times on the same subject. 

Business Management Lessons!

Saturday of this week, I played on a new golf course in Dracut, MA.  As I approached the course, lining the street were multi-million dollar homes all occupied with no for sale signs.  Lawns were perfectly manicured and I really felt as though I were on a movie set.  So obviously folks, there is still money out there and people are making it.  These are people who are clearly managing their portfolios wisely as well as their business. 

So what does this have to do with you?  It is important to remember that regardless of our economic situation people will continue to purchase what they NEED not what they WANT.  So the key to your business model is to re-evaluate, re-structure if necessary and provide clients with what they NEED.  If there are sectors in your business model not making money, try to look at how best to move resources around to augment other sectors in your business model that ARE making money. 

Recently, I worked with a mid-size plumbing company.  They primarily handled new construction as well as re-models.  Once the economy tanked so did their business, but they still had skilled labor!  This was their greatest asset.  We began to look at how to beef up the "service" end of their business.  We started to call on all previous customers offering them deals and packaging for servicing all of their plumbing needs.  We created different types of maintenance agreements.  What we discovered is really very simple, people NEED the water heater in top condition

Business Planning---Not Just a Form

Recently, I've seen an influx of requests for a "form" to prepare a Business Plan for a start-up.  Many vendors are quick to suggest a template, but there is more to business planning than merely filling out the required fields. 

A business consultant can tell you that unless you conduct a thorough SWOT analysis, a competitive marketing review and an assessment of product viability or service viability, you are merely going through an administrative process that may not provide you with the information you really need to make sound business decisions. 

A business plan should be a reflection of not only where you want to go with your business idea today, but what obstacles you need to overcome in order to be successful.   Business Plans also have different purposes.  If you are writing a plan to entice potential investors, then the plan needs to be customized to appeal to their pocketbooks.  If you are writing a business plan in order to help organize where you want your business to be in five years, then the focus of the plan shifts to a strong mission statement and operational principles. 

Look for assistance from competent consultants that can provide you with the help you need.  The dollars you spend working with professionals who understand how best to position your company in the future will be an investment you want to make in your company in the long run.

Use Your Business Plan to Run Your Business

Business Plans should be looked at at least quarterly by members of the entire management team.  A business plan is a document that guides how a company will get from point A to point B.  In today's challenging business environment, all companies need to be at the ready to alter their business models to meet the changing needs of their industry and their customers.

A business plan can be simply a coffee table book that gathers dust or it can be a powerful tool for an entire management team to stay ahead of the curve, alternating if necessary, the course of how they will achieve their goals. 

Each business plan must include financials.  At the very least these should be reviewed on a monthly basis to ensure that the economic structure supporting the plan is a sound one.