Go Ahead, Drop Some Balls…

Go Ahead, Drop Some Balls…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

High resolution image orange spheres. 3d illustration over white backgrounds.Just the other day, I was meeting with an executive acquaintance of mine who had just received a significant promotion. While he is excited about his promotion, he is challenged with looking for his replacement in his previous position; and in the meantime was doing both jobs. When I asked him how it was going, he responded, “just trying to get it all done, without dropping any balls”.

This conversation reminded me of one I had with one of my Vistage CEO  Advisory Board members. He was lamenting the challenges one his executives has with burnout. In this case, the CEO was saying “I wish he would learn to drop some balls, his effort to get everything done is what is causing his burnout”!

For those of us who want to dot every I and cross every T, (I admit I am one of them), the ‘to do list’ can seem endless. What I heard this wise CEO saying is, “go ahead, drop some balls”, just choose the ones you are going to drop.

What if instead of starting each day with a list of what we are going to do, we instead begin by removing from the list the things we aren’t going to do. Here are some examples to get you started:

  • What if you reviewed email once or twice per day, and let everyone know that is your plan?
  • What if you coded your email so that critical emails moved to a priority list and you responded to these first?
  • What if you paused and asked yourself, does this email, call, text, inquiry require a response?
  • What if you removed yourself from EVERY email where you were listed as a cc (or sorted these to a “someday maybe” list).
  • What if you paused, before saying “yes”?

Please send me your comments with ideas to add to this list…

P.S.  In honor of this post and my upcoming vacation, the next blog post will appear September 29th.

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

Managing Business Assets W/ Portfolio Management Risk Practices

Managing Business Assets W/ Portfolio Management Risk Practices

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

2013 08-06 Elisa Spain Risk Management


Businesses are assets, right? What might happen if we followed the risk management practices of portfolio management in running them?

The “portfolio managers” of our business are our leadership team, our key executives.  Business owners have a risk tolerance that leads them to be more or less involved in activities in their businesses.

What I observe as a Vistage chair and leadership coach is sometimes executives frequently feel either micromanaged or adrift and unclear of expectations.

When the business owners abdicate instead of delegate, only to jump back in when things are not going as they expected (but didn’t verbalize), this creates unnecessary risk; leads to outcomes we don’t want and drives everyone crazy.

What if, instead, owners and executives followed the same process as we do for our investment portfolios?

When we hire an advisor to manage our traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds, the first thing they want to know is the answer to the following two questions:

  1. Will you delegate full responsibility for managing your portfolio to me? or
  2. Will the account be co-advised?  Meaning, before I make a purchase or sale in your portfolio, I must consult with you?

When the owner of the portfolio chooses #1, the client and the advisor work together to design a portfolio that meets the risk tolerance of the client, the advisor constructs the portfolio and typically the advisor provides reports, usually monthly or quarterly, that inform the owner of the status of their portfolio. Additionally, the advisor’s reports include a comparison of their performance to that of their peer group.

Sometimes, the owner of the portfolio chooses #1, but instead of delegating authority, monitoring the performance of the portfolio, and periodically evaluating the portfolio manager; the owner abdicates, i.e. moves on to other things and ignores the portfolio manager.

I heard a sad story from a friend recently who chose option #1, neglected the monitor and evaluation part, and didn’t discover the result until he needed the money and realized it was gone. The advisor was not dishonest, he simply made poor investment choices.

If you decide to try this approach, here are some questions you and your executives might consider asking:

  • What decisions will the executive have full responsibility for?
  • Which decisions do you want to co-advise?
  • What risks are you most concerned about?
  • What kind of reporting works best for you? Written, verbal?
  • What do you want to monitor, and on what frequency?
  • How will my performance be evaluated?

And finally the most important question,

What is our agreement as to how to give each other feedback when the outcomes or the process didn’t go as we expected?

 

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership View #12: Watch For (Perhaps Unintentional) Malicious Obedience…

Leadership View #12: Watch For (Perhaps Unintentional) Malicious Obedience…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

2013 07-14 iStock_000000937577XSmallLeadership View #12: Watch for (perhaps unintentional) malicious obedience…

Early in my career, I learned this valuable lesson. I had the opportunity to lead a transition of a client reporting group from a fully manual process to a fully automated process. This area was the last functional area to be automated in this company (guess that tells you how long ago this was). When the previous manager left in the middle of the systems conversion, I was asked to take over.

As those of you who have led systems conversions know, it is never a smooth process and there are many long hours that are just part of the process. On one of these long nights, the senior person on the team came up and asked me how to calculate a certain number. I didn’t know the answer, and I didn’t ask him if he knew the answer, I simply guessed. And, I ass-u-me-d, he would tell me if I was wrong. See previous post, What results when leaders Ass-u-me?

In this case the result was, every report, to every customer, went out wrong. Like, I said, I learned a valuable lesson.

Perhaps in this case the obedience was intentional. My sense is, it was not. Here was a man who was overwhelmed by change, his world was being completely turned upside down. He had never used a computer in his life and suddenly his work had to be done on one. It didn’t occur to him that how he had calculated this number before was the same way to do it on the automated system.

More importantly, I didn’t ask, I told. And, I didn’t lay the ground work for my being open to being questioned, I simply ass-u-me-d he would know.

I wonder, how many of the big disasters that we read about could have been avoided by the leader asking questions and making sure the team knows he/she wants to be challenged?

As you go through your day on Monday, I encourage you to pause and notice how you respond when someone on your team asks questions, and perhaps consider answering the question with a question of your own….

Elisa K. Spain

 

Leadership View #11: Hardest Task

Leadership View #11: Hardest Task

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

2013 06-23 iStock_000010450125XSmallLeadership View #11:

Hardest task – changing your leadership and management styles as your company grows or you go up the ladder. 

I often hear entrepreneurs say, “I don’t want to lose the culture as I grow this company” or “We are like a family, I want to keep this feeling as we grow”. And yet as the company grows the culture inevitably changes and the owner no longer knows the name and the family of every employee.

And, what the company needs as it moves from “go-go” to “prime” (to quote Vistage speaker Gerry Faust) is for the leader to change.

In the go-go period, everyone is equal and it is all about getting the job done, getting the orders out, meeting the customer needs. Typically the owner is the chief sales officer and innovator. And, then as a company adds more people and moves to prime, management becomes necessary and terms like “building a leadership team” come into play.

Suddenly the owner is thrust into a role of CEO and has people reporting to him or her who are focused on their own career path. These key executives want the opportunity to innovate and have an impact themselves. And, the CEO while still expected to define the vision, must also become a coach and mentor, allowing others to grow and develop as leaders.

At the same time, the folks who came to the company as experts and doers are often expected to become managers. And those that came to “manage” are expected to become leaders. The best operations manager who succeeded because he or she can implement processes must learn to think like an owner and take a broad view. These new roles and new ways of thinking require new behaviors as well.

Those that are able to change are those rare few that build and lead the less than 1% of companies >$100mm in revenue.

Elisa K. Spain

 

Laws Of Success: Perfection Of The Life Or Perfection Of The Work?

Laws Of Success: Perfection Of The Life Or Perfection Of The Work?

by Elisa Spain3 Comments

2013 03-17 Balance Work LifeiStock_000018217096XSmallThe Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse. 

William Butler Yeats, 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939

Elisa K. Spain

 

Disappearing Jobs, Does It Matter?

Disappearing Jobs, Does It Matter?

by Elisa Spain2 Comments

Sign dollar and the books on scales. 3D image.Last month I attended the Vistage International Conference during which Michael Milkin presented the Milkin Institute research on the changing U.S. demographics.  I was struck by the data change in the number of unskilled jobs. In 1950 there were 3 unskilled jobs for every 1 skilled job. Today, there are 4 unskilled jobs for every 1 skilled.

Michael postulates that this is the reason why the American dream is dead – it used to be you work hard and you get ahead. Today while hard work still matters, education and skills come first.

In my opinion, this also explains the sticky unemployment numbers.  At the same time, my Vistage members tell me  finding talented people continues to be challenging. In short there is a war for talent, while millions remain unemployed.

You might ask, so what is the leadership question? Isn’t this a global problem, not a leadership topic?

Here are my leadership related wonderings:

  • At what point does it become cost effective for companies to create their own educational programs?
  • When and how will it become cost effective for small/mid-sized companies to provide training via entry level unskilled jobs?
  • As robots continue to replace workers, what will be the impact on small/mid-sized companies capital requirements?
  • As the mismatch between job opportunities and qualified employees grows, how might this impact both immigration and emigration?
  • As the world becomes less dependent on geography, how might employers match their jobs with qualified individuals worldwide?

 

Elisa K. Spain