Chinese Innovation

This morning I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in Beijing and they were showing early Chinese innovations like paper, printing and the compass. I didn’t know these things originated in China. The artists were putting on a beautiful and spectacular demonstration that was artistic and highly technical and disciplined.

Yesterday I met a business owner near my office to talk about developing a high performance organization and to see if we could work together to improve his business, I had met Tim a few months ago when I was acting as a judge for the local Chamber of Commerce Accolades award for the most innovative company in the region. I remembered the visit I had made with the two other judges and how I was impressed with the small innovative and flexible firm he had built. They had managed to take standard everyday products and develop them into new designs and functions that addressed specific needs in niche markets.

I had bought along an article http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3009ca9f-f412-4050-b64e-6a3e91049ffb that talked about how important innovation is to competing globally and gave an example of a firm in Ontario that was leading in their field because of their innovative approach to their product and market, as well as they way they functioned.

We talked about China and the challenge that manufacturers face because of the easier access to products from there and China’s great ability to manufacture at a much lower cost. He told me of his experience with trying to outsource some manufacturing to China and how it failed. He said that they are good for producing high volume low quality products. I felt differently because although I see that many low priced products produced there are generally lower quality, I have seen great improvements in the quality of many products from China over the years. Tim pointed out that larger firms are able to handle their own quality control in China or build factories in partnership with local owner/operators.

Learning this morning about China’s past and it’s remarkable innovations clashed in my mind with the observation made by Tim. We has also talked about what it takes to build a high performance autonomous workforce and the key point we agreed on was that it takes a continuous improvement attitude from all people in the organization to not only drive innovative thinking but to empower people to do so. This is scary for many small and medium size business owners because it means giving up power and control to a great degree to your people. At the same time not doing so hinders the potential growth of the organization as well stunts creative thinking and thus makes the organizationless inflexible and less able to compete.

In my mind, this is what happened in China. The great discoveries and innovations were made long before the restrictiveness of communistic rule began to act on the psyche of the Chinese population. Since then China has become a land of control and imitation. They seems to be great at replicating what others are creating and doing it fast and less costly.

For North American manufacturers to survive and grow, they must foster innovation and continuous improvement throughout the organization and the attitude for this begins with the president and his executive team. They must be willing to embrace a management style that promotes creativity and open sharing of ideas. They must also realize the importance and value in generating strong team spirit throughout the departments. To do this requires the top leaders to examine and improve their own leadership and teamwork behaviours and insists that those they manage do the same. This will then drift down throughout the organization and when reinforced will become the behaviour to emulate and thus mold the culture of the enterprise.

 

The Wooer telemarketer

Beach at Saint-Irénée - Charlevoix

Just back from a week’s vacation in the beautiful Charlevoix and Saguenay regions of Quebec and so I was a bit slow in getting myself out the door this morning. This gave a chance for the telemarketer from Bell to catch me at home.

My first inclination when I heard the word Bell was to say I was in a rush and to call back, but after a few sounds of the sweet voice of Pascale, I was had. I have been experiencing difficulty with their services at home and work over the last few months and so I am not a great fan of theirs at this time.

And so it goes to show you that no matter how bad you may have performed yesterday (I refer to Bell as a collective You), an engaging, wooer type of employee can turn things around in a few moments and even sell more services. Which is amazing because just 2 weeks ago I wanted to get rid of them as a supplier.

A wooer employee or person is one who is so nice and empathetic you cannot resist their kind charm and words. And the ones that know and understand their own qualities and how to use them are really effective, case in point being Pascale the Bell girl.

The thing is in sales these wooer types are often weak because they are not at all aggressive. So don’t put them into aggressive type sales roles or situations where they need to use high pressure closing techniques. They are often attracted to and do well in social work type occupations including nursing and human resources. But they can be really effective in sales roles where they can use a gently approach to selling.

Pascale did a really good job of attempting to close me on a sale. She didn’t ask me to buy, she just assumed by my reaction and interest in her offer that I was ready to buy and was taking me down the lane of getting a final agreement. I did hold out saying I wanted to compare her offer with my current supplier and to call me back tomorrow. She agreed and said she would call at 9:30. Let’s see if she does.

So it is important for both the employer and employee to understand the type of person they are and how to best utilize the qualities of their type and the talents and skills they have developedthough learning and training. This person’s style was in great contrast to another Bell telemarketer who called me last month to sell me Internet hosting and design services. The guy was so aggressive and obnoxious I hung up on him They obviously work for 2 very different bosses and cultures within the Bell organization. I am even thinking the Internet guy may work for a third party.

I have been working with Frtiz Glaus and learning and teaching his typology approach to better understand people. The wooer type comes from his types of people system and is the Supporter type. I can tell this just by her behaviour on the phone, which I think is pretty darn good.

Fritz and I are working on a new website and on-line learning system to teach the types to business leaders and coaches. You can start by reading his book CrazyZoo available at http://www.lulu.com/content/394116. I was reading it again on vacation and it amazed me how much you can learn about yourself and others and how to improve relationships using this system.

Let’s see if the Bell girl does call back and succeeds in closing the sale.

Stephen

 

Does training and development really improve productivity and performance?

We often do not give enough credit and attention to learning and training and development. Actually is their a difference between those two sets of words? I think that training and development implies putting into action what we have learned whilst learning may only mean acquiring the necessary knowledge to do something. For example my son learns a lot from watching TV and has an expert opinion on just about everything but does not do to much with it. In other words he does not walk his talk because although he thinks he knows something, he does not show that he can do those things.

I am writing this because this morning I was watching a part of a training video I purchased for learning how to use my new HD video camera so I can make high quality videos for my work. This requires getting professional results from this awesome little prosumer camera (the Sony HRDC1) http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony-hc1.shtml

As I was watching the video I recalled a conversation I had with my friend Peter who graciously video taped me giving a seminar last month. He has the same camera and convinced to buy it after explaining the features and how great the video turns out. When we were setting up for the shoot that day I asked Peter what settings he was using on the camera and he replied none. He was completely relying on the automatic settings of the camera, and replied saying that the camera does such a great job itself, why bother changing anything? After watching the video this morning I realized he was saying this because he did not know any better. He does not realize the tremendous potential one has to control the camera through it’s manual settings and get far superior results. The video explains why one should opt for the user controls in order to get truly professional results.

As I was watching the video and learning how I could control the various options to improve the quality of the video I was thinking back to some of the things I had taped recently and how this information would have greatly benefited me at that time. In fact just 3 days ago I was taping a speaker and could have used more appropriate settings to assure the best results.

Of course watching the video is not enough. I need to pick up the camera and actually practice applying the settings that is recommended. In fact this reminds me of the steps to training that assures skill development and not just knowing something. These steps are:

1. Explain the purpose or objectives of the training and why it is important
2. Explain each task or skill that you want the person to learn
3. Demonstrate the task or skill
4. Have the person perform the task or skill while you the trainer observe
5. Provide feedback on the person’s performance. Reinforce what they are doing well and redirect on what needs improvement
6. Repeat the above steps if needed
7. Provide follow-up. Agree on the level and frequency of follow-up required

Following these steps always delivers greater results. Just ask yourself how many things have you learned that actually stuck and were put into practice? The cause for this is probably reflected in the above list.

I was very impressed with the quality of the video I watched as steps 1-3 were done extremely well. Of course they could not do steps 4-7 without being there with me, so it is up to me to practice. This is where training often fails to produce the desired results. Those doing the training do not always consciously follow the above steps and easily forget about the follow-up. This is why in organizations managers are the ones who should do as much of the training themselves as they can or develop a follow-up plan with the trianing provider in order to make sure the skills learned will be practiced.

I can safely say that I will put these new camera techniques into practice. In fact I brought my camera to work with me and plan to do some video taping tonight to practice immediately. I will soon be bragging to Peter about how knowledgeable I have become about my camera and I know he will be begging to borrow the video so he can learn to.

So you see training can help us to claim our right to brag and thus increase our self-confidence and esteem. This is a good thing as long as we don’t go overboard. I also feel that my investment in my camera, which costs quite a bit more than the average models was well worth it as I feel I now know how to use the tool to get the superior results I had originally envisioned.

What are your thoughts on training and it’s importance to results and goal achievement? Please provide your comments.

 

Are You the Go To Person in Your Organization?

Are you the go to person in your organization?

Can everyone depend on you to get things done or to make sure projects move forward? That may make you feel good, and powerful, but it could also stunt your growth by loading you down with too many tasks or responsibilities.

I recently worked with a client who had moved up within his organization to become Operations Manager of this growing manufacturer. He earned that position because his main motivation, of accomplishment, and his preference for high efficiency and for taking action drove positive results. He has a track record for having his departments be on time with their projects. Not all departments in the organization are as efficient, so he was naturally the go-to person to fix this problem in the rest of the company as well.

There are only so many hours in a day and he cannot supervise all the departments himself, so time has become a huge obstacle for his continued success. He thus needs his managers and supervisors to become autonomous and this brings up another problem and question: can his management team produce the same results that he is used to getting? After all, he cannot clone himself or enforce a leadership style that is not appropriate for his supervisors and managers. This is where strategic planning plays a significant role in staff development. When we think of strategic planning we first think of business or market strategy. Of course this is essential, but the strategy must extend itself to people and processes as well. Processes need to be assessed and improved continuously to enable the business strategy to work, and so does the people side of things. Contrary to processes, people are not always so flexible and maneuverable in terms of developing their leadership and teamwork abilities, which can of course cause them to become complacent or even resistant to change.

So our high performing operations manager needs to train and coach his managers and supervisors on how lead their teams for maximum effectiveness, so that he can be replaced and freed to continue to use his qualities, namely his effectiveness and accomplishment. Otherwise they act as a threat to his continued ability to get results and may cause him and the organization to fail. This can lead him to experience stress, it may undermine his effectiveness, and perhaps even cause him to display negative tendencies of his type like being overly aggressive and excessively task-oriented. To act strategically this operations manager must follow these three steps:

1. Make sure the managers or supervisors are fit for the job. If not they need to be re-positioned or replaced.
2. Train and coach his managers and supervisors on how to be effective in their roles as leaders.
3. Provide ongoing support so that the managers and supervisors with their teams can be autonomous in solving problems as they arise.

By doing the above, along with the use of a good business strategy, excellence is a guarantee. Failing to do so is a sure-fire recipe for failure. To learn more about Style of Leadership contact me or read about our Style of Leadership & Team Development training workshop here. Stephen Goldberg, sgoldberg@optimusperformance.c

 

Do You Work as a Group or a Team?

In today’s world of instant communication and rapid change driven by improvements in technology, is it essential to have people work as a team? After all, with new and better information systems in all areas of the organization that provide data for better decision making, why do experts in performance improvement talk about the importance of teamwork. Well the answer is simple. Whatever decisions are made to improve how things are done or to create new products or processes, it is people who need to implement those decisions and make things happen. The better people work together, the more potential there is to realize the efficiencies that new technologies and systems promise.

Teamwork is even more important in complex organizations where collaboration needs to happen between departments and perhaps remotely. Even small organizations may have multiple locations where goods are either developed or produced. There are two reasons for this, one is the fact the it may be cost effective to outsource certain aspects of operations or development and also because specialized talent is often required to create new products or services and may not be found locally. It is quite common today for people to work from a distance and the latest studies show that contrary to previous beliefs, working from home is more productive and less stressful.

One organization that proves that teamwork pays off is Toyota who is famous for the slogan the “Toyota Way”. This great organization learned how to continuously improve their processes and products, which has led them to become the worlds leading seller of automobiles, surpassing the giant General Motors who recently announced billions of dollars in losses. Over the years Toyota invested heavily in Kai-zen or continuous improvement. But they did this the “Toyota Way”, by developing teamwork and a participative management style. The outcome today is positively clear when you compare them to GM or most of the North American car manufacturers.

Many aspects of our leadership and team development training programs contain the same principles of participative management that Toyota is famous for. Can these principles and methods that drive continuous improvement and teamwork be applied to all organizations, big and small? Absolutely! In fact it is better to understand these principles and develop the appropriate leadership attitude and behaviour when you are a small organization because your leadership and business strategy will be driven by them. And these attitudes will dictate how well and fast you are able to grow your business.

One principle of participative management is to involve your team members in important decisions that have a direct impact on the work they do. By doing this people will feel empowered and be motivated to back the decision and do what is needed to support it. If you make most of the decisions without involving the team, they may feel things are being imposed on them and resist the change that the decision imposes.

So this brings me back to my subject question, what is the difference between and group and a team? We ask this question in our “Styles of Leadership” and “My Team and I” training programs. The usual answers are teams have clearer goals, are more motivated, have clearer responsibilities, etc. etc. But these things also can exist and do in most groups. The real difference is that in a team, team members know, trust and are willing to help each other to achieve the mission or goals of the team. The have learned to understand themselves and each other and may not like all their team members, but are willing to accept them, put deal with their differences and work together. This may sound simplistic and subtle but it is also a very powerful concept and not obvious to implement. It requires self-development; first on the part of the leaders of the organization and then by all team members. This means people need to discover why different types of people see things differently and to tolerate and embrace these differences. It does not mean tolerating negative attitudes and behaviours.

Fritz Glaus, author of “CrazyZoo, Know-Thyself Made Easy” has also created the “Styles of Leadership” and “My Team and I” training programs that incorporate a simple approach to know oneself and others. This knowledge is incorporated throughout the training program so that people learn to collaborate based on the types of people they work with, while learning to apply the principles of participative management and teamwork that has driven Toyota and many other great organizations to world class excellence.

Many organizations attempt to develop teamwork by once a year involving everyone or selective departments in team building activities, or the occasional social activity. While these well organized activities are fun and different and usually produce short term enthusiasm, real team development is an ongoing process that requires understanding, a strategy and determination backed by top leadership commitment. It does not come easy, but the payoff is worth it. Toyota proved it!

For more information on how to develop real teamwork and continuous improvement in your organization, contact me today.

Stephen Goldberg

sgoldberg@optimusperformance.ca

www.optimusperformance.ca

 

Realizing your 2008 Goals

February is already here and depending upon which groundhog you consult, spring may not be far away. All the pundits including me have been extolling the virtues of goal setting and taking the time to write them down.

Have you included goals for personal development for yourself and your team if you manage others? This is important because if we want to have more of anything in our work and lives then we need to expand our potential for creating, knowing and receiving in order for the goals to manifest.

This is why training and development is so important for goal setting to work. Training increases our knowledge and skills so we can perform at a higher and more productive level. It also gives us the confidence to face the new challenges that lie ahead. If we expect ourselves or our employees to achieve higher performance in the realization of new goals without providing the right training, we may be dreaming in colour. And simply handing someone a subject matter book or manual without any coaching does not constitute as training.

When considering training you need to look at two areas; systems and people. Both are essential for improving operations and achieving goals. Here is a quick yet effective way to determine your training needs along with an example for a business owner.

Look at your list of goals for the year. Make a list of the knowledge and skills you or your team would need to develop in order to reach your goals. Consider both potential systems and people problems. Also contemplate what you need to give up or stop doing that could be done by others. This opens the door to delegating greater responsibilities to team members and automatically enables them to develop new skills. If you are a manager and have not been proactive in delegating and training of staff, one potential roadblock could be a resistance in your staff to change or to grow. This may entail specific training to address this problem. Choose one or two of the most essential items and then develop a plan to acquire that knowledge and those skills or to provide thrm to your team members.

Suppose you are the owner of a medium size manufacturer business and your key goal is to expand your distribution network in the US through franchised distributors. You realize that this requires more time on your part to learn about the market and to develop new skills in marketing. The problem is that you don’t have the time to devote to this because much of the day to day operation is dependent on your input and direction. Upon further analysis you see that the main cause for this dependency is a lack of the ability of your managers and their staff to be autonomous. Thus you determine that the training required to address the cause of the problem is leadership training and development to have managers develop skills such as delegation, coaching, managing performance, giving feedback, communicating etc.

From a systems perspective you realize that meetings to track and discuss department progress are inconsistent. So you decide that planning a calendar of meetings along with meeting management training for your managers is also essential so they can hold their own meetings autonomously. We need to make sure that we solve the real cause of our problems and not just the symptoms. It could be easy to analyze the problem incorrectly and choose the wrong solution. Perhaps the immediate solution would be to hire a marketing manager or consultant to come up with a plan, but if the owner does not have the time to support and work with that person then the investment would be wasted.

It is important for someone like a business owner to recognize the importance of consulting with someone who can have them identify the real cause of performance issues by looking at the whole picture, which means systems and people.

Stephen Goldberg sgoldberg@optimusperformance.ca

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin

If you think knowledge is expensive, what is the cost of ignorance?

Benjamin Franklin

 

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