How to Empower Employees

Employee empowerment is a management concept that vexes many supervisors. Although most managers say they want to empower their employees, few actually do it well. Employee empowerment is a buzz-word often used by management, yet seldom practiced effectively in most organizations.

Many managers struggle between knowing they need to give their employees the authority to act independently, yet fearing the employees will actually become independent. If the employees are empowered to make sovereign decisions, the managers worry, the company may no longer need the managers. Hence the managers are hesitant to give up power they believe ensures the viability of their supervisory role.

At the same time many employees are afraid to take on added responsibility. They fear the additional workload or job pressure. Even more, they fear being held accountable for the decisions they make. They are hesitant to put their own anatomy on the line, knowing that it may be their butt that gets kicked if something goes wrong.

The primary reason why managers and employees struggle with the concept of empowerment is because they both have a misconception of what real empowerment actually entails. Managers often operate under a false assumption that employees are empowered merely by wishing them to be so. “You are empowered,” the managers say to the employees. “You can make decisions. You can take risks.” They think empowerment occurs when employees are told in a broad-brush manner they are empowered.

“Yeah, right! We’re not empowered,” the employees respond, falsely believing they have no power and can take no action without managerial input.

Many managers and employees wrongly believe empowerment is an all-or-nothing proposition. A person either has power, or they don’t. But this is not how empowerment works.

DEFINITION OF EMPOWERMENT

Employee empowerment does not mean absolute authority or absolute power. Empowerment is the extent or degree of responsibility and authority given to an employee or to a team. Different people and different teams will have varying degrees of empowerment based upon their level of experience and expertise. Employees who have the trust, respect and confidence of their managers will have a greater degree of empowerment than employees whose actions are suspect. Empowerment is the act of identifying the tasks on which an employee is trusted to act independently versus which tasks the employee must get input on or approval before proceeding.

Employee empowerment also entails identifying how much responsibility and authority an individual can effectively handle without becoming over-burdened or distressed.

The concept of employee empowerment is analogous to the process of sending power through a light bulb. If 100 watts of power is sent through a 10-watt bulb, the bulb will blow up. If 10 watts of power is sent through a 100-watt bulb, the bulb will glow dimly and not achieve its full capacity.

Likewise, if 100 watts of empowerment is sent through a 10-watt employee, the manager may fry the brain of the employee. Some employees cannot handle more than a few watts of responsibility and authority. Empowering these employees with a surge of new responsibilities may cause sudden spasms of anxiety and rapid burnout.

On the other hand, if a manager sends 10 watts of empowerment through a 100-watt employee (one who is fully capable and willing to do more), the employee will never achieve his or her full potential. Highly capable employees who are underutilized become deenergized when their talents and abilities are not used fully. Eventually, 100-watt employees who are only given 10 watts of power either become 10-watt employees or they leave the company and go somewhere where they can reach their full potential.

HOW TO EMPOWER EMPLOYEES

Effective empowerment requires an open dialogue between the manager and the employee. It entails identifying all of the tasks and responsibilities the employee is expected to perform. Once the full extent of the tasks are determined, the manager and employee discuss which of these tasks they mutually agree the employee can perform independently, and which tasks require the involvement of the manager before action is taken. They discuss the employee’s willingness and readiness to be held accountable for the decisions he or she makes and the actions one will take in those areas where one has the authority to do so.

During this discussion the empowerment of the employee is clearly spelled out in what I refer to as the black zone, green zone, and red zone boundaries.

The BLACK ZONE is the sum of all tasks and responsibilities the employee is expected to carry out in his or her role. It is a literal list of all possible activities the employee may be required to perform in his or her job classification. It includes everything the employee is expected to do at work.

The GREEN ZONE entails those tasks and responsibilities on the list in which the employee is free to make decisions or to take independent action without seeking further guidance or approval from anyone else. Tasks and responsibilities placed in the green zone are those where the employee has the authority to take whatever action or to make whatever decision the employee deems appropriate. Green zone items require no additional approval from a manager. The employee merely keeps his or her manager apprised of the progress on green zone tasks.

Green zone issues usually include those tasks where the manager has full confidence that the employee will fulfill his or her responsibilities correctly without further input from the manager. Typically these tasks are those where the manager trusts the judgment and decision making abilities of the employee and respects one's capacity to make the right choices. Consequently, the manager can support the employee’s actions and decisions without having to be involved.

The RED ZONE identifies those tasks and responsibilities where the employee must seek input or approval from others before taking action or making a decision. Red zone items are those tasks where the employee does not have the authority to take independent action or to make independent decisions. The red zone shows where the employee must involve others or get approval before proceeding.

Red zone items are those where the manager does not feel confident the employee will make the right choice or take the right action without input from the manager or others. The red zone is used when a manager does not feel the employee has the right skills, knowledge, ability or experience to take the correct action or make the right decision alone. These tasks are those where the manager may not trust the judgment or decision making ability of the employee, or where the risk is too high to leave the decision solely in the hands of the employee. The red zone also is used to identify those tasks where the manager wants to make sure the employee solicits the input and involvement from others before taking action. An IT employee, for example, may be fully competent to make independent decisions regarding what hardware or software to purchase, yet a manager may place such decisions on the red zone because he or she wants the employee to get input from end users before proceeding.

Although a manager’s goal should be to enlarge the employee’s green zone to the fullest extent possible, the employee will never be totally free of red zone items. Legal, regulatory and compliance requirements restrict an employee’s actions. Additionally, a manager can never empower an employee beyond the manager’s own empowerment. There will always be tasks, issues or responsibilities that are within the manager’s own red zone, and therefore automatically become red zone items to the employees beneath the manager.

Once the zones have been established the manager needs to respect the boundaries that have been set. If an employee comes to the manager requesting the supervisor’s opinion on a green zone issue, the manager should not offer an opinion. This would violate the green zone. The green zone means the employee needs to think the issue through and make a decision using his or her own judgment. Less confident employees often come to managers on green zone issues seeking input before taking action. This is because they don’t trust their own judgment. If the manager provides guidance on the issue, the employee will never learn to trust his or her own thinking. They will continue to seek input in the future, thereby shrinking the green zone.

One of the most difficult challenges for a manager who has empowered an employee is to stay off the green zone when the employee makes a bad decision. Most managers feel compelled to counsel the employee so the mistake will not happen again. But this will only shrink the green zone. Employees who sense even a slight rebuke for errors on the green zone will be less inclined to take risks in the future. To be truly empowered an employee must be free to make mistakes. The most profound learning experiences often come when people make mistakes and are forced to learn from the consequences of those mistakes. If the manager steps onto the green zone to correct the employee when a mistake is made, the employee will be kept from discovering their mistake through the consequences that would naturally follow.

Good managers let their employees fail. They let them learn from their own mistakes. They stay off the green zone. Bad managers charge onto the green zone, not realizing that in doing so they teach the employee to get the manager’s input every time before taking action. Thus the employee becomes risk adverse in the future and the green zone shrinks even smaller. A manager’s mantra must always be to “stay out of the green zone.”

ACCOUNTABILITY VERSUS RESPONSIBILITY

Another difficult concept for managers to fully understand is the difference between responsibility and accountability. These two qualities are not the same.

An employee has RESPONSIBILITY for all of the tasks he or she is required to perform. They are responsible for everything within the black zone. It is the employee's responsibility to make sure everything is accomplished on the list of tasks for one's job classification. The worker is responsible for doing it all.

ACCOUNTABILITY defined as those tasks for which the employee is answerable for his or her actions. An employee can only be held accountable for actions over which he or she had the authority to choose how he or she would perform. Accountable tasks are those green zone issues where the employee may be required to justify or explain one's actions. Since the employee has free reign to act independently on these items, he or she must be willing to account for their decisions and actions. They must report back on their stewardship and be ready to reap the rewards or bear the consequences for the choices made.

A manager cannot hold an employee accountable for red zone issues if the manager is the one who made the decision or demanded the action. If an employee is carrying out an order or implementing a decision that has been dictated to them, the employee cannot be held accountable if something goes wrong. That is unless the employee failed to fulfill one's fiduciary responsibility or otherwise caused the task to fail because of their action or inaction. In such cases where the employee did not do all he or she could to make the decision work, the employee definitely is accountable.

An employee has SHARED ACCOUNTABILITY with the manager on red zone issues if the manager makes his or her decision based upon the employee’s information or recommendation. If an employee suggests a certain action be taken, and the manager concurs with the employee’s proposal, both the manager and the employee should be held accountable if something goes wrong.

WHEN TO EMPOWER EMPLOYEES

As previously mentioned, employee empowerment can only be accomplished through an open dialogue between a manager and an employee.

Empowerment is individual-specific. Blanket empowerment (such as giving all employees authority to approve expenditures below $50) is a form of empowerment, but it is a less effective method of empowering employees. With blanket empowerment all employees are given the same authority level regardless of experience or expertise. One would hope a front desk clerk that has been in her position for several years would have superior decision making abilities than a front desk clerk who is new in his role. Consequently, the experienced worker should be granted greater power and authority than her inexperienced colleague. When experienced workers are given equal empowerment to less experienced workers, it lessens the value of the qualified worker and decreases their motivation to perform at their advanced level of experience.

The process of empowerment starts during the recruitment and selection of a potential employee. It is here the manager begins to discern to what extent the manager will be able to trust, respect, and have confidence in the candidate based upon the past candidate’s experience and expertise.

The empowerment process continues after selection during the orientation and training of the new employee. During this period the manager outlines the black, green, and red zones by clarifying the goals, direction, roles, responsibilities, authority and boundaries for the employee.

Once the employee is functioning within his or her assigned tasks the manager continues to monitor the employee’s progress to look for opportunities to expand the green zone. On-going performance feedback is necessary to ensure a continuous dialogue occurs between the manager and the employee. It is through this dialogue the manager will gain the trust, respect and confidence necessary to empower the employee even more.

Simply stated, empowerment is the extent to which a manager has trust, respect, and confidence in an employee’s ability to make appropriate decisions or to take appropriate action on work-related issues. When a manager trusts the employee’s judgment, respects the employee’s opinion, and has confidence in the employee’s decision-making abilities, the manager will be more inclined to grant the employee the power to work free of close management scrutiny. Thus, the employee becomes truly empowered, rather than the pseudo-empowerment that is common in many organizations.

How to Develop Competent Managers

Every organization has its share of good managers and bad managers. Unfortunately, in some companies the number of bad managers may exceed the number of good ones.

Some people have the title of “manager,” yet never seem to effectively fulfill the manager’s role. Instead they act as glorified workers, receiving supervisory pay, but doing very few real supervisory tasks. They do the work, but they do very little managing.

True managers, good managers, competent managers, know how to manage. They know how to motivate their employees to perform at the desired level and to maintain that level on a continued basis. They communicate their expectations and hold people accountable for their actions. They regularly assess the performance of their employees and give constant feedback so their employees know at all times where they stand. They recognize the accomplishments of their workers and actively coach people who need improvement.

There are Eight Core Competencies of Management® that separate real managers from those who merely are managers in title only. If you, as a manger, cannot perform these eight tasks competently, then you are not really managing.

The first area of management competency is the ability to identify the performance you want from your employees. This includes the specific job skills, job knowledge, work behaviors and proper attitude necessary to perform at the desired level. It literally is the ability to identify what you want your employees to look like, sound like, feel like, and act like when they are performing their job tasks. It is being able to specify exactly what you want, when you want it, how you want it, where you want it, and why.

When expectations are not clear, it’s almost impossible for employees to perform at an acceptable level – unless you expect a low level of performance. Of course, only an incompetent manager would accept unsatisfactory performance from those in their charge.

The second competency of true management is the ability to effectively communicate what you want from your employees so it is completely clear to the employees what is expected. The best time to communicate your expectations is while you are interviewing job candidates for open positions. Doing so lets people know, before they are hired, what is expected and helps you and the potential employee to decide whether or not the individual matches your expectations.

Once employees are already on staff, communicating performance expectations is an ongoing process. It starts in the new employee orientation, is reinforced during on-the-job training, and continues in the daily interactions between you and your employees. Performance expectations ought to be reinforced in staff meetings, emphasized in interoffice memorandums, and noted in departmental and company publications.

After you know the performance you want and can communicate it to others, you can either hire what you want or train to what you want.

It would be wonderful, of course, if you could find enough people who already match your expectations, and then just hire them. But usually that’s not possible. Consequently, as a manager you need the skill to both hire the right people and to train less competent performers so they can attain the level of performance you expect.

It takes a special skill to be able to identify during the interview process the exact qualifications and competencies the job candidates possess. Many candidates are adept at telling you exactly what you want to hear during the interview while hiding their weaknesses. Later, after these individuals are on staff, you discover you purchased a flawed product. When that happens, you need to be skilled in raising the proficiency of less competent employees through properly designed and executed training processes. Competent managers are good trainers.

During the hiring and training processes you also need to provide the employees with the information, tools and resources they need to perform to the expected level. Employees who have the necessary skills and knowledge, but who lack adequate information, tools or resources, cannot perform their jobs as well as they could.

Once employees are hired, trained and performing their job tasks, you should regularly measure and monitor employee performance to ensure you’re getting what you want. This is more than empirical or assumptive analysis. It is the ability to competently assess the cause and effect relationship between what an employee does and what he or she produces. It is the ability to discern outcomes and results as they directly correlate to the actions and performance of the employees.

The ability to tell exactly how employees achieve their results is a key component of managing performance. If you, as a manager, lack the competency to identify how work behaviors impact production, you have no way to replicate the behaviors that achieve positive outcomes. You also lack the insight to discard those behaviors that are non-productive or dysfunctional. Competent managers are adept at measuring performance.

In order to focus your employees’ performance you also must have the ability to give effective feedback to your workers. Not surprisingly, many managers are deficient in this core management competency. Some managers seem incapable of expressing their gratitude and appreciation to employees who perform well. They act as if their feedback philosophy is one where “no news is good news.” Other managers are hesitant to reprimand those employees who need corrective counseling. They act as if ignoring the problem will somehow make it go away.

Competent managers, the ones who are real managers, constantly interact with their employees. They reinforce and encourage workers who are doing well. They give ongoing support, guidance and instruction to those who need improvement. They are not hesitant to confront poor performers. They do not shirk the primary responsibility of a manager, which is to ensure employees are performing at the desired level.

Consequently, if you are an effective manager you have the ability to recognize and reward those who give you what you want or to coach, counsel, discipline or terminate those who don’t.

Amazingly, some managers reward employees regardless of the level of their performance. They write generic performance appraisals and give blanket pay increases with no noticeable link to actual performance. They allow off-purpose behaviors and unacceptable job performance to continue rather than confronting problem employees. Or, worse yet, they ignore both poor performers and exceptional employees, creating disheartening conditions where good performance goes unrewarded and bad performance goes unchecked.

Finally, the last competency is the ability to provide career counseling and developmental opportunities to increase the proficiency levels of your employees so they can give you even more of what you want in the future.

The level of your success, or competency, as a manger is determined to the extent to which you increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your employees so they can produce more. Your success is measured by your employees’ success. The more productive they are, the more competent you are as a manager.

You were hired to improve your department, to take it to the next level, to go beyond what is currently being done. Your department, and each employee within it, ought to be better because of you. You need to ask yourself whether your department is better now, with you as the manager, than it was before you became the department head. Is it better now than it was last year? Are your subordinates better than they were before you became their leader? Are the employees better this year than they were last year?

Competent managers constantly assess the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. They understand each employee’s known and potential capabilities. They meet with their employees to discuss their personal and professional goals. They know what each person wants to achieve in his or her career. Good managers help their employees map out a developmental plan and/or career path. They design developmental opportunities that raise their employees to the next level and get them to produce even more for the company.

To be deemed a competent manager, you must be proficient in all eight of these critical skills. A weakness in one or more of the core competencies will adversely impact any relative strength in the others. Your adeptness in giving feedback is diminished if you haven’t clearly communicated what you want beforehand. Being good at measuring and monitoring performance is meaningless if your recognition and reward systems are not tied to specified results. And, of course, if you can’t hire properly or train your employees to perform at acceptable levels, all of your competently designed discipline processes will be of little worth.

Competent managers constantly monitor their own performance. They introspectively assess whether or not they are doing all they can to competently manage their employees. They realize that competent employees are a result of competent management.

How to Respond When an Undeserving Employee Asks for a Pay Raise or Promotion

Practically every manager has had an employee ask them for a raise or promotion. Some employees confront the manager armed with justification as to why he or she deserves the pay increase or higher position. These requests are easy to address for those employees who deserve it and when there are open positions and financial resources available. It is much harder to respond to an employee who has the gall to ask for a pay raise or promotion when he or she obviously doesn’t deserve it. Amazingly, undeserving employees seem to be the ones most likely to ask for more money or a better position. This article explains how I confront these requests.

The first thing I do is to make sure every employee understands up front, long before they might come to me seeking a raise or promotion, that I am not the one who determines whether or not he or she deserves it. I explain to the employees that their pay raise or promotion is within their own control. Raises and promotions are bestowed upon those who deserve it, when they deserve it. I also explain that it will be self-evident when an employee deserves a raise or promotion based upon specific and certain criteria. I then explain the criteria so there will be no confusion in the future.

Employees need to know they they will be given a pay raise when they are worth it and will be promoted when they are worthy of it. Worth and worthiness are the key indicators of a person’s eligibility for a raise or promotion. This should be obvious to everyone; and to most employees it is. Unfortunately, for the less astute employees, it needs to be spelled out.

I also tell the employee that it is their responsibility to prove their worth and worthiness, not mine. They have to justify the raise or promotion, not me. Then I explain how they can prove and justify it.

To help the employee better understand the components of worth and worthiness I explain a concept I developed called the RENTAL AGREEMENT. As a manager I am renting an employee’s skills, knowledge, attitude and behaviors for a set period of time. During that “rental” time I have very specific expectations of things for which I am willing to pay. Since I am paying the employee for their services, I expect them to fully use their skills and knowledge to effectively achieve specific performance outcomes. I expect them to exhibit the attitude and behaviors I want to “buy,” and to not exhibit the attitude and behaviors I don’t want to buy. During the rental time I expect an employee to work for me to achieve my purposes, not for the employee to do whatever he or she wishes. If the employee wants to do what he wants or she wants, then they can either do it on their own time or pay themselves, instead of me.

I further explain to the employee that the beauty of the rental agreement is that it is only for a very small portion of their day. I offer them a fair price (wage, benefits, a quality work environment, and other perks) for a day’s work. All they have to do is model the appropriate characteristics for the specified limited amount of time. Once their “shift” is over they can do whatever they want and act however they want. All I’m asking the employee to do is to perform and act according to our “contract” for the length of the rental agreement.

The employee also needs to know that when the conditions of our working relationship are no longer in compliance with our rental agreement, I will either enforce the contract or terminate our agreement. Should the employee wish to not do the work, or stop doing the things I require of him or her, I will be perfectly willing to stop paying them.

Consequently, the first criterion, therefore, in determining whether or not an employee deserves a pay raise or promotion is the extent to which he or she has fulfilled their part of the Rental Agreement.

The second way I determine an employee’s worthiness for a raise or promotion is to assess their performance against what I call the VALUE EQUATION. An employee’s value to the organization is determined by appraising the difference between the value of his or her accomplishments versus the cost of one's performance.

Value is measured as the worth of the business results the employee accomplishes. An employee’s value or worth to an organization also might include his or her knowledge of the business, relationship with customers, positive influence on other employees, initiative, innovation, or a host of other valuable skills, knowledge, abilities, attitudes, or behaviors. For example, a self-motivated and self-directed employee has greater value to a manager than an employee who needs constant guidance and prodding from the manager before fulfilling a task. An employee who is always on time or who readily works extra hours when needed is of great value.

The Cost side of the equation entails more than the monetary measurements of wage, salary, benefits, and other compensation related perks. The cost of an employee might also include the amount of time a manager has to spend with that individual. Some employees are a pain to manage. The hassle-factor of dealing with some people is extremely draining on a manager and therefore very costly in time, stress, brain cells and peace of mind. Someone who performs according to the rental agreement without supervisory over-sight has greater value that an employee who only does what is expected when the boss is around. Employees who whine and complain are of less value than those who do their jobs cheerfully without grumbling.

Obviously an employee who accomplishes little and costs a lot would not be worthy of a pay raise or promotion (unless it is to be promoted out the door). Likewise an employee who accomplishes very little, yet doesn’t cost very much, would also be unworthy of an increase. I’m always surprised at the number of low performing workers who believe they should be paid more. In actuality they should be paid less than what they are making, yet they feel they are worthy of being paid more.

The only employees who deserve a pay raise or promotion are those who have high value margin where what they produce is far greater than the costs to produce it. High value employees who are high performers are worth paying high costs to keep them.

Although it may seem that the ideal value margin to an organization would be to have high-value/low-cost employees, this is a formula for disaster. Companies who try to improve their profit margin by limiting the compensation of their good employees will soon find they have very few good employees left. High value employees will leave a company if they are not paid what they are worth. Competitors can easily steal a company’s high value employees who feel under valued at work.

Managers ought to consciously use the Value Equation to clearly show the value, worth and worthiness of those employees who deserve a pay raise or promotion and to expose those who don’t.

Finally, the last criteria I use for deciding whether or not to grant a pay raise or advancement opportunity to an employee is what I call the CREDIBILITY FACTOR.

Before I can justify an employee’s pay increase or promotion I must have a credible reason for doing so. The only way I can confidently champion an employee’s request for more money is when I have credible evidence that confirms they deserve it. But this credible evidence is not limited to the employee’s performance. If performance were the only criteria for a promotion, only competent people would be promoted. Yet many competent employees have watched in frustration as less competent non-performers were promoted over them. At the same time, highly competent performers often are not promoted. Therefore, performance cannot be the only criteria for determining whether or not to promote an individual.

An employee’s “credibility” is the sum of the following three elements: performance, image and exposure.

Performance is the merely the first characteristic of credibility. Being known as someone who can produce results adds to one’s credibility. Employees who talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk, are not credible. Results are important.

One would hope that an employee must produce credible results before they receive more pay or greater responsibility in the company. But this is not always the case, as stated before. Quite often, less competent performers are promoted over more qualified individuals. Obviously, therefore, there must be more to credibility than mere performance. I believe that competent performance accounts for only 50 percent of the decision of whether or not to promote an individual.

The second element of credibility is Image. It’s one thing to be a competent performer; it’s another thing to look, sound, and act like a competent worker. Employees who produce valuable results, but who don’t interact well with their peers or superiors, carry less credibility than those who get along well in the organization. How a person acts and how they look has significant impact on whether or not they will be promoted. Employees who match the company image have a greater chance of getting a pay raise or promotion than those who don’t. Being a “fit” in the organization often can have more weight than one’s actual performance.

The third determinant of credibility is Exposure. Although it is important to be competent and to act competent, if key decision makers are unaware of the employee’s competence, the chances of being promoted are diminished. High performers need exposure in the company. Before a high performer can be granted a pay raise or promotion key decision makers in the company must know about their accomplishments.

It is the employee’s responsibility, more so than the manager’s, to get the message out that he or she is an outstanding performer. This, of course, could be done through self-promotion or tooting one’s own horn. But the best promotion is when some other credible source is touting the accomplishments of the employee. Employees who want more money or want to get promoted should perform and behave so well it causes other people to talk positively about them. Those who wish to go far in an organization ought to ensure that others within the organization talk about them in positive terms.

This brings up a key concept that few people understand. To get promoted a person must be promoted in a marketing sense. The only way that I (or anyone else) will promote an employee’s accomplishments is if I am convinced they truly are high performers. I tell my employees I will know when they are high performers because, not only will they achieve the production results that are expected of them, but they also will look, sound, and act like a high performer. Likewise, I will hear other people telling me how good the employee is. When a manager is constantly being told about the outstanding achievements of one of his or her employees, the manager would be a fool not to ensure the long-term loyalty of the employee by rewarding that employee with a pay raise or promotion.

Again, I tell every employee they will be granted a pay raise or promotion when they are worth and worthy of it. Consequently, they can be assured their request for a pay raise or promotion will be met with an immediate “yes” response if they can prove their worth and worthiness. My answer to every request is always: “Yes, I will give you a raise or promotion – if, and when, you are worth it.”

When you have the three tools mentioned above it is very simple to assess an employee’s worth and worthiness by asking a few questions:

• To what extent has the employee kept his or her rental agreement?

• To what extent has the employee accomplished valuable results, and at what costs?

• Does the employee’s performance justify the requested pay raise or promotion?

• Does the image of the employee match the image expected of an employee at the new pay or position level?

• Would others in the organization agree that the employee deserves the pay increase or promotion based upon their knowledge of the employee’s accomplishments?

If the answers to these questions show the employee’s value to the company and worthiness to receive a pay raise or promotion, the decision to increase the company’s costs by granting the employee’s request should be easy to make. An investment in a valuable human asset is a wise investment indeed. On the other hand, if the indicators are not favorable, denying the employee’s request should be equally easy to deliver. Granting a pay raise or promotion to an unworthy candidate would be a waste of company assets.

How to Capture the Enthusiasm and Commitment of New Employees from Their First Day at Work

Public speakers and people being interviewed for a job know they have just a few, minutes to make a good impression with their audience. They know the relationship will either be solidified or broken during those precious moments.

The quality of your company’s new employee orientation and departmental training programs, to a great extent, determine the quality of the performance you will get from your employees later on. Many managers miss the wonderful opportunity to capture the initial enthusiasm a new employee brings to the company on the first day of work, while doing so can keep that enthusiasm going throughout the employee’s tenure at the company.

An employee’s first day at work sets a precedent and makes an indelible impression on the employee. How she or he feels at the end of the first day determines whether the worker’s enthusiasm and commitment to the job will wax or wane. Your job as a manager is to make sure your employees feel good about the work they do, feel good about the company for whom they work, and feel good about working for you. The determining factor of how well an employee will perform is how good they feel at work.

According to a Staffing.org survey, companies spend anywhere from $2,000 to $11,000 to hire a new employee, but few put much effort into helping workers acclimate and become productive once they are hired.

If new hires don’t receive proper training and support early on, 47% leave their jobs within the first six months. This means the most important training a company can provide to its employees may be that which occurs immediately after the employee is hired. Unfortunately, many companies have weak or non-existent new employee orientation or on-the-job training programs, thereby missing a great opportunity to capture the enthusiasm and commitment from new employees from their first day at work.

I’ve been designing new employee orientation and other employee training programs for companies for over 30 years. I’ve become adept at delivering high-quality training products at a very low cost because I have a systematic way of developing courses that achieves very specific performance and behavioral outcomes.

The strongest indicator of a training course’s impact and effectiveness is how the participants feel at the end of the session and how capable they are to carry out the needed tasks at the desired performance level. Both the right capability and the right feeling are necessary for employees to fully internalize what is taught and to actualize the performance behaviors they’ve learned.

Over time I have concluded that, regardless of content, every training – particularly new employee orientation and on-the-job training – must result in four essential feelings at the conclusion of the event. To succeed in their jobs, new employees must feel comfortable, confident, proud, and included in order to perform at acceptable levels. The sooner the employees exude these feelings, the sooner they will perform competently in their positions.

Consequently, new employee orientation should be designed to help employees feel COMFORTABLE with their new company, work environment, job classification, manager, and colleagues. People in new situations are out of their comfort zone. They are unsure about who the key players are in the organization. They don’t know where things are. They are uncertain about what is or is not acceptable behavior in the company. They proceed cautiously, hesitant to make even minor mistakes.

On-the-job training should anticipate the discomfort new employees experience and design into the training ways to alleviate the uneasiness of the workers. Everything possible should be done to lessen the stress of learning a new job.

New employee orientation and training at both the company and department level must provide the employees with the requisite knowledge, skills and behavior to perform all job requirements without hesitation or timidity. By the end of the training new employees should feel CONFIDENT they made the right choice when they took the job. They should feel fully capable of performing their assigned tasks at the performance level required.

Self-confidence is the key to self-action. The more a company does to build the confidence of its employees the greater the chances are the workers will perform at optimal levels.

When designed properly, orientation and training programs ought to make the employees feel PROUD of their new company, department, and team. The content of the training should instill a sense of ownership and wholeness within the new employees. The greatest indicator of successful training would be for employees to leave the session telling others how proud they are to be a part of the organization or group. Proud employees are the best recruiters for future employees.

Finally, the orientation session should ensure the new employees feel INCLUDED as bona fide members of the team. By the conclusion of the training the employees should be viewed and treated as fully functioning, contributing members of the team, not as rookies. They should feel a sense of unity and oneness with the group. Most importantly, they should feel they are on the same level with other employees in the group.

Those companies who consciously and deliberately design their orientation and training programs around these four critical feelings will ensure their employees literally hit the ground running from the first moment they step into the workplace. More important, good leaders will realize these four feelings are what employees must feel each and every day they come to work, regardless of how long the employees have worked at the company. These four feelings are the keys to maintaining the commitment of employees over the course of their careers with your company.

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Innovative Management Group can help you design and development New Employee Orientation and Department Training programs that provide your employees with the skills, knowledge, abilities, talents and attitudes necessary to be successful at work. Give us a call at 702-258-8334 or email mac@imglv.com

How to Achieve Consistent Quality and Service Throughout Your Company

Every business person should know the key to success in any business is to create loyal customers. Customer loyalty occurs when your customers have unquestionable trust and confidence that the quality of your products and the delivery of your services will be consistently satisfying each and every time they patronize your business. When customers know they will have a good experience in every transaction with your company they will do business with you again and again.

You need to realize that your customers want to do business with you. If they didn’t, they probably would go somewhere else. Consequently, all you have to do to be successful and ensure long-term customer loyalty is to please the customers when they patronize your business.

The process for building customer loyal starts from the first transaction a customer undertakes with your company. Whenever a customer patronizes your business for the first time she is taking a risk. She doesn’t know whether your products or services will be good or not. She hopes your delivery will be good, but she hasn’t yet developed the trust and confidence that this is so. If the customers’ requirements are met satisfactorily on that first visit, more than likely she will patronize your business again. However, if her needs are not met, she probably won’t give you a second chance.

Successful companies know the key to success is to please the customers in such a way they have no desire to take their business elsewhere. Loyal customers have no second choice for where they want to do business. They are loyal to one company because they know they will have a satisfying experience with that company each and every time they buy their products or use their services.

Therefore, the key to repeat business is to do what you do extremely well and always be consistent in both what you offer and how you deliver it. The strength of your customers’ loyalty is in direct proportion to the confidence they feel regarding how well you consistently meet their needs and expectations each and every time they do business with you.

McDonald’s hamburger restaurants guarantee repeat business to the company’s franchises by making sure a Big Mac tastes the same every time, regardless of which outlet a customer visits, when they visit, or who is preparing their meal. Consistency is the key to McDonald’s success.

The way to achieve consistent quality and service throughout your company is to follow a blueprint I created several years ago called THE CONSISTENT SERVICE MODEL®.

Consistency starts with gaining a firm understanding of what your customers expect when they patronize your business. It begins by pinpointing the “products” or “services” your customers actually want to buy and the intrinsic reason(s) why they buy them. Consistent service delivery revolves around having a clear view of your products and services from your customers’ perspective. It entails knowing their true needs, wants, expectations and requirements.

The first step, therefore, in consistent delivery is to clearly identify what you are really “selling.” Since a company normally sells a product, I call the first step in the Consistent Service Model the development of a Product Description.

A product description describes what “products” your customers actually want to buy. It states why your business “exists” from the customers’ point of view. The clear articulation of your product description helps you develop and deliver your products and services to the customers’ requirements as they perceive their requirements, not to some standard or specification that you or your company may arbitrarily establish. The key to success in business is giving your customers what they want, the way they want it. If your company fails to deliver your products or services to your customers at the level they expect, you soon may find your enterprise going out of existence as your customers defect to competitors who are giving them what they want.

The best way to determine your customers’ expectations is to identify the “implied promises” behind every product and service transaction. Customers want more than the products they buy or the services they utilize. They want consistent delivery on the implied promises that come with those products and services. You are selling more than just the physical elements of your products and services. There are attributes or qualities about those products and services that are inherent in the transaction itself.

For example, customers who patronize a fast food restaurant want fast food. Fast food restaurants that don’t get the food out fast irritate their customers and usually cause them to take their business elsewhere.

Patrons of fast food restaurants also expect their fast food to be hot and fresh. So getting the food out fast precludes cooking it so far in advance that the food’s hot and fresh qualities might be negatively affected.

In addition to wanting fast, hot and fresh food from a fast food restaurant, the customers also expect their order to be filled accurately. Fast food restaurants who deliver a quality food product fast, hot, fresh and accurately will have a significant competitive advantage over restaurants who don’t meet these customer requirements.

Similarly, a person who buys a power tool wants it to work – they want it to be reliable. They also expect it to work for a long time. In other words, they want the tool to be durable. They also want the tool to be easy to use and to perform the functions it is designed to perform at the level promised. Finally, since it is a power tool, they expect the tool to be safe.

Tool manufacturers who produce safe, durable, reliable, efficient and easy to use power tools that perform the functions they are designed to perform at the level promised will win in the market over competing manufacturers who fail to deliver on these implied promises.

One last example shows there are implied promises in every element of life, including one’s personal life. Every person on this earth is selling something. The “product” a person may be selling is oneself.

When a job candidate goes to a job interview, the candidate who does best in the interview is the one who realizes he is the product. The key to getting hired is showing that one is capable of delivering on the implied promises that the hiring company is looking for in an employee. If the job candidate does not “sell” himself well, his services are not “bought” by the hiring company.

Likewise, the best food servers know they are selling much more than just the food their restaurant offers. The most successful food servers – meaning those who usually reap the largest tips – are those who view themselves as part of the overall package. They take just as much care in how they present themselves as they do in presenting the food.

As can be seen by the examples above, consistent delivery on the implied promises is what customers want to buy. They want predictability when they patronize your business. Nothing infuriates customers more than to think they are buying one thing – hot, fresh, fast, accurate food – only to discover too late they are getting something else.

The best product descriptions are those that clearly identify what a company is selling. This isn’t always as obvious as it may seem. Many hotel owners, for example, think they are selling rooms. Consequently, they build as many rooms as possible by having thinner walls between the rooms. They then try to create a high profit margin by filling their thin-walled rooms with a high volume of guests.

But the best hotels – the ones that create the greatest customer loyalty – are the hotels who realize the product they are actually selling is a good night’s sleep. Hotels who sell sleep design their facility to ensure nothing disrupts their customers’ sleep. Thin walls mean noise, and noise means less sleep. Hotel guests who can’t sleep usually do not repeat the experience. They go to a hotel that recognizes what the customer really wants is to sleep. Hotels who sell sleep consistently out perform those who just sell rooms.

Every job classification in your company needs a Product Description because every employee in every position in the company is selling something. Every employee has customers – either external or internal – who “buy” that person’s products or services. Their customers either buy what the employee is selling or they don’t. If the employee’s customers are not satisfied with the quality of the employee’s products or the delivery of their service, the customers prefer to go to someone else who can give them what they want. And if too many customers defect, the employee may soon find their job no longer exists as they are replaced by someone who can deliver what the customers want.

Customers generally tend to gravitate to those service providers who best meet their needs. When one employee is reliable and another employee is not, the customers tend to channel all of their interactions toward the reliable employee. Consequently, the unreliable employee ends up with little or no work. Eventually workers who have no work tend to lose their job.

Let me give you some additional examples to help you better assess what you might be selling.

A potwasher in a restaurant sells clean, sterile pots that are free of crusty food, grease and grime. The chefs and cooks – who are the potwasher’s customer – either buy the pots from the potwasher or they don’t. Any pots not cleaned to the chef’s satisfaction are returned to the potwasher until he meets the chef’s requirements. Additionally, the potwasher must place the pots where the chef wants them, not wherever the potwasher wishes. The potwasher must also be cheerful when he washes the pots no matter how many times the cooks dirty the pots. If the potwasher continues to fail to clean the pots to the chef’s satisfaction, the potwasher may soon find he is no longer employed as a potwasher.

The Accounting Department in a company also is selling a product. Accountants sell fast, accurate financial information from which to make sound business decisions. A PBX phone operator is selling information and routed calls that are provided in a fast, accurate, friendly and courteous manner. Customers who take their cars to a dealership for repairs hope the mechanics can quickly and accurately diagnose and fix the car’s maintenance problem at the lowest possible cost.

Each of these examples shows what the customers really want to buy. If the “product” is not delivered the way the customers want, hey will buy these services from someone who can deliver on the implied promises.

Determining true customer expectations requires you to look beyond the obvious to the intangibles that are desired. In addition to wanting a room wherein they can sleep, hotel customers want a room that is clean, safe, quiet, and comfortable room where everything works properly so they can sleep through the night. Hotels who fail to consistently provide all five components when selling their rooms may soon find themselves short of customers as customers migrate to competing hotels who consistently meet their requirements.

A product description is a succinct statement of the core customer requirements, or the basic “promises,” you must successfully and effectively deliver every time. Far too many companies fail to get the basics right. Those who continue to fail at the basics may find the very existence of their business threatened.

Once you know what products your customers really want in order to be fully satisfied with your products and services, the second step in the Consistent Service Model is to “guarantee” you will deliver what they want every time they do business with you.

Service Guarantees are clearly identified and articulated internal measurements that a person must consistently achieve to meet the customers’ expectations. They are the measurable standards you set to ensure your employees deliver a consistent product each and every time. They show whether your employees are winning or losing from the customer’s perspective. Service guarantees are the scorecard indicating success or failure.

Service guarantees quantify your product description. They show how you will ensure, or guarantee, you will delivery on the implied promises each and every time a customer patronizes your business.

Service guarantees typically are determined from your product description. For example, the service guarantees hotel customers want are relatively clear. Hotel patrons want a clean, safe, quiet, comfortable, and fully-functional room. They want these five implied promises all of the time. If the room is not clean even once, or the room is robbed once, or the lights don’t work one time; the customers will lose confidence in the hotel. They will seek competitors who they feel better “guarantee” the cleanliness, safety, quietness, comfort, and functionality they require in their room.

Service Guarantees are not published guarantees you advertise to your customers (although you could advertise them if you feel your service guarantees offer a competitive advantage). Rather, service guarantees are measurable standards to which your employees hold themselves accountable in order to satisfy your customers. They are the means to communicate the things that matter most to your employees. They are what every employee must consciously strive to achieve in their position every moment of their workday. In short, the service guarantees are why the employees exist. The way employees guarantee their existence is to deliver on the implied promises of the product description and service guarantees all of the time.

The next step in the Consistent Service Model is the way to ensure every employee delivers on the promises as stated in the guarantees.

Anyone who has stayed in the same hotel room for several days in a row probably has experienced inconsistent cleanliness in their room. Some days the room just seems to be cleaner than others. This usually occurs because a different person cleaned the room. The new person had a different way of doing it. They did it their own way, resulting in inconsistent service.

Customers usually don’t care who cleans their room or who provides the service; they just want the experience to be the same every time. No one wants to go to a restaurant and has to ask who the cook is that day in order to know how to order their steak cooked. They want rare, medium, and well-done to be the same each time they patronize the restaurant regardless of who is behind the grill.

The only way you can “guarantee” that your products and services will be the same for your customers each and every time is to ensure all of your employees maintain the same Standards, abide by the same Policies and Procedures, and use the same Processes, Practices and Systems so they perform their jobs at the same desired level. If one housekeeper uses one procedure or process to clean the hotel room, and another has a different procedure or process, the room may be cleaned inconsistently. Standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems are the means for replicating the specific performance and experience expected by your customers. If employees fail to follow those guidelines, you cannot ensure (guarantee) the results will be consistent. Therefore, strict enforcement of the defined standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems is the key to consistent service.

Once you know the standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems needed to deliver on the implied promises, the next step is to train your staff to faithfully abide by them. The most effective Training is training that is targeted specifically to instruct employees on the standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems necessary to guarantee their existence. The only training that has real, lasting value is that which is linked to the employees’ product description, service guarantees, and the tasks they must carry out to meet the customers’ specific requirements.

Companies should focus their training around why the employees’ job classification exists (product description) and what they must do to ensure their existence (service guarantees). Training should teach the employees how to consistently perform their tasks according to the standards, policies, procedures, processes, practices and systems that have been specifically designed to meet the customers’ requirements. Companies who invest their training dollars in such a targeted approach will reap a return of consistent performance and strong customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty is assured when your customers can confidently trust their experience with your company will be the same quality experience each time they purchase your products or utilize your services. Customers want assurance that no matter when they patronize your business or which of your employees serves them, they will get the same level of quality and service each and every time. Consequently, the final step in the Consistent Service Model is the ability to certify that all of your employees are maintaining the same standards and exactly following the procedures you purposely have mapped out to achieve your guaranteed results.

Certification is the means by which you attest that every employee knows exactly how to do their job and they are doing it as designed. You certify that no matter when a customer uses your products and no matter who performs the service, the customer will experience the same quality service each and every time they patronize your business.

The only way you can certify that this will be true is if you measure, monitor and manage the performance of the employees to ensure they are doing it as they were trained. Employees who, for some reason, are not performing their tasks as trained should be decertified and coached or retrained until their performance returns to the specified level.

Certification should be a requirement for keeping one’s job. Regular, on-going certification is the capstone of the Consistent Service Model. Employees must be held accountable for delivering on the implied promises at the desired level identified in the service guarantees.

Business leaders who help their employees identify why they exist, and then do everything possible to guarantee their existence, will find they have created both loyal customers and loyal employees. Customers become loyal when they know they will have a good experience with your company. Employees become loyal when they know how to win at work. The consistent service model guarantees customers and employees win every time.

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Innovative Management Group offers a management training course that teaches managers how to develop consistent service at every level your company using the Consistent Service Model. For more information contact us at 702-258-8334 or email mac@imglv.com

How to Align Your Strategies and People to Ensure Long-Term Profitability and Growth

Never before in the history of the modern workforce has the concept of a focused effort and teamwork been more important to the success of your business.

Creating a focused organization starts with ensuring that everything within your company is driven by your strategies for long-term profitability and growth. Success in any enterprise begins with clarity of purpose and a thorough articulation of, what I call, the STRATEGIC LOGICS® of your company.

Well-designed company strategies are logical. They make sense at every level of the organization. They are easy for your staff to under-stand and follow. When your strategies are logical there is no confusion in the minds of your managers or employees regarding your company’s strategic objectives. Your business “makes sense.” Everyone “gets it.” They understand how all of the pieces fit together. They can see how the tactics to implement your strategies naturally, and logically, follow.

A well-thought-out strategic plan covers the nine strategic elements, or “logics”, of your business. These logics define your strategic intent. They establish the business imperatives that must be achieved to maintain the financial viability of your company.

In this article I outline these nine elements in their logical order. The order of the logics is important. It’s imperative that each component be addressed in the proper sequence. The conclusions from the first logic drive the decisions made in the second and all subsequent logics. Each logic affects all of the logics that follow. Taking them out of order impacts the logical alignment of your organization.

THE STRATEGIC LOGICS

The first consideration for aligning all actions within your company is to determine your Product Logic. This entails identifying which of your pro-ducts and services has the greatest potential for success with your current and future customers. It involves a probing analysis of your value proposition, both tangible and intangible, as you directly and indirectly meet your customers’ needs.

To identify your product logic you need to determine which value premise best positions your products in the market. A value premise differentiates your products from those of your competitors. This differentiation may be product uniqueness or special features, functions and benefits. For example: Does your product have an innovative style? Does it have an unmatched design or texture? Is its ergonomics unique? Does it meet a cutting edge need? Is it being introduced at the precise time to coincide with current market demand? Will it start a new trend? Does it appeal to a distinct lifestyle? Will it be a status symbol for those who buy it?

(For more information on how to differentiate your products, see another of my articles entitled, How to Differentiate Your Products to Enhance Your Competitive Position.)

Your product analysis also requires identifying which new products or services you could introduce into the market in order to attract new customers.

Once you’ve clearly defined which of your products or services has the highest potential for success, you can more easily identify your specific targeted customers – those who will buy the specific products you offer.

Your Customer Logic entails determining which customers to target and how best to attract and retain them. Your customer logic always has two prongs, or core strategies – attraction strategies and retention strategies. Attraction strategies are those that will entice customers to try your products and services. Retention strategies are those that will keep your current customers from defecting to your competitors.

Attraction strategies include determining whether it is best to have a narrowly defined value package that people buy under specific circumstances, or to have a wide range of offerings that enable you to meet the needs of diverse customer populations. Which is best: to focus your customer base to a narrowly defined customer group, or to cast a wide net and try to pull in every fish in the sea?

To help you decide how best to position your products to targeted customer groups, here are some questions to consider. Are there areas of natural growth where you can expand the size of your customer base? Can you bundle or unbundle your products to attract new customers? Are there new avenues of customer access or new channels of delivery that could grow greater customer volume?

Retention strategies require constant and accurate assessment of shifting customer expectations and needs. To maintain your current customer base, you must know exactly what pleases and displeases your customers and give them the products and services they demand.

Once you have assessed who your target customers are, you will be able to identify your real competitors. You are not competing against every company in your industry.
Your competitors are only those companies that offer your target customers the same or similar products you do, those that are going after the same customer dollars you have targeted, or those that may soon enter your targeted customer market.

Your Competitor Logic is an assessment of who your true competitors are based on your product and customer logics. In this category you conduct a thorough competitive analysis to evaluate what your competitors are doing to attract the customer dollars you want. You also note what your competitors are doing to keep their customers from defecting to you.

In addition, your competitive logic includes an assessment of your competitors’ strengths relative to your company’s products and services. It involves identifying competitor weaknesses that can be exploited and other opportunities from which you can strengthen your competitive position. Your competitive logic is a comprehensive assessment of how you can entice customers to choose your value package over that of your competitors and thereby attract customers from your competitors to your products and services.

During your competitive assessment you also must uncover any competitive threats that may be lurking on the horizon. Note any new products your competitors might be introducing into the market or new companies that might be emerging in your market and become a direct threat to your business. Once these have been identified you need to determine the specific defense strategies you can launch to thwart the incursion of these emerging competitors.

The primary objective of developing your competitive logic is to identify what you must do to create or maintain your strategic competitive ad-vantage. In your competitive logic you should develop an attack strategy to go after your targeted customers who are patronizing your competitors and a defend strategy to keep your competitors from stealing your customers.

From the knowledge gained through the previous logics, you develop your Marketing Logic. This is where you identify the best way to attract and retain your targeted customers.

Your marketing logic answers questions such as the following: What will you emphasize in your sales, marketing, advertising, and public relations activities? How will you position your products and services to your customers? What media modes and methodologies work best for the types of customers you wish to reach? What database management or customer tracking systems will you need in order to communicate with your customers or to expand your customer base?

The effectiveness of your marketing approach, of course, is just one component of your Economic Logic. Cogent marketing certainly affects the economic success of your company, but there are other strategies you could undertake to ensure profitability and growth.

For example, you could grow your business by increasing the volume of customers you serve. You could seek to gain market share at the expense of your competitors. You may wish to create the demand for your products in the minds of those who currently don’t use your products. You could absorb sales volume or market share by merging with or acquiring other businesses. You also could vertically integrate your offerings with others in the supply chain, partner with other suppliers, or create a significantly advantageous cost structure that improves profitability and growth potential.

The critical outcome desired from your economic logic is to determine how best to achieve profitable growth. Your economic discussion includes identifying the specific financial results you expect as a logical outcome of your product, customer, competitor and marketing logics.

Once you have identified these five externally focused Strategic Logics, you then can turn inward to set your internal organizational strategies.

The first of these internal strategies is your Quality and Service Logic. Note the placement of this logic in the sequence of logics. Many companies start with a premise that they must provide high quality products and superior service in order to be successful. But this is not logical. If no other company can replicate your product and your product is in high demand, people will buy it even if the quality is marginal. When you are the only game in town, customers will settle for lower levels of quality or service merely because there is no where else for them to go.

Likewise, if your primary customers have limited income, they cannot afford, nor do they typically expect, high caliber products or services. Successful companies some-times flood the market with low priced, lesser quality products in an effort to bankrupt under-capitalized competitors who have limited staying power because of the small size of their enterprise. Big companies with lesser quality have been known to knock off smaller companies with higher quality products.

There are many variables to success, but, contrary to popular myth, quality and service shouldn’t necessarily be your first considerations. The standard you set for quality and service should be an obvious and logical conclusion from your product, customer, competitor, market, and economic logics.

Once you’ve assessed the level of quality and service you must provide to achieve your strategic objectives, you next must assess the best methods to reach that standard. Your Resources and Technology Logic forces you to look at whether people or technology is the best way to deliver the level of quality and service your business require.

In the resources and technology logic you should analyze which systems, technology, materials, equipment, facilities and other resources are needed to support your strategic initiatives. This also involves assessing which current commitments, processes, investments and relationships are no longer in harmony with your strategic direction. Those strategies or tactics that don’t help you grow your business should be discarded.

With a clear understanding of the level of quality and service you need, and the resources and technology it will take to achieve it, you are now ready to determine your Organizational Logic. This includes identifying the best way to organize your company in order to produce your products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations.

For example, your enterprise might be organized around a product focus, production focus, sales focus, expertise focus, cost control focus, personal contact focus, account management focus, or any of a number of other foci.

Your organizational logic also includes an assessment of the policies, procedures, processes, and practices needed to ensure the smooth flow of materials, information, and other elements vital to the success of your operation. It entails determining the management structure, spans of control, decision making authority, problem solving processes and other processes that will ensure your products and services are executed according to the standards you set.

Only after all of the previous logics have been determined will you be in a position to establish your Human Resource Logic. Human resource strategies are considered last because the conclusions from each of the previous logics drive human resource decisions.

The extent to which your human resource practices are aligned with your external and internal strategies greatly affects the profitability and growth of your enterprise. Your employees are the ones who will carry out your strategies. Therefore all human resource policies and practices must be designed to help your employees achieve your strategic objectives. Further, all of your human resource practices must be correlated and aligned with all eight of the previous logics. This includes recruiting, hiring, orienting, training, measuring, monitoring, compensating, rewarding, incenting, promoting, and the day-to-day managing of your employees.

For example, if you’ve identified that superior service is a critical success factor for your company, your recruiting and compensation practices must allow you to attract and retain quality employees. If a shotgun marketing approach is essential to attracting more customers, then it would be imperative to create an internal marketing (communication) mechanisms that enlist the “sales” support of every employee to spread the word about your products and services.

Likewise, if a swift response to rapidly changing conditions in the marketplace is imperative to your company’s success, your management systems must promote risk taking and fast decision making. Your managers must be trained to encourage and respond to employee input. Your reward systems must reinforce creativity and innovation. And all of your HR practices must be designed and aligned to create a fluid and pliable workforce.

STAYING FOCUSED

The outcome of your Strategic Logics is your strategic intent. But intent without action is valueless. The key to strategic alignment is turning your strategic intent into specific actions that achieve your strategic objectives.

The Strategic Logics of your company must be uppermost in the consciousness of your managers and employees. The logics are at the heart of every decision and every action taken within your organization. They should be the conscious focus of everything you do. Every employee must understand his or her role and what they must do to achieve the strategic objectives of your enterprise. The logics give focus to everything within your company.

As stated earlier, the first five logics (product, customer, competitor, market and economic) are externally focused, while the last four logics (quality/service, resources/ technology, organizational, and human resources) are internally focused.

In mature organizations the senior leaders of the company are primarily externally focused and future driven. They worry most about the future growth of the company and are concerned about the revenue producing elements of the business. Consequently, they own the first five logics and are charged with achieving the revenue enhancement strategies that grow the business by creating new markets and new customers.

At the same time department managers with-in these successful businesses remain internally focused and present driven. They worry about maintaining the stability of the company. The company will be stable when the employees produce the products and services at the quality and service levels expected by the customers. In other words, operational managers stay focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation, thereby reducing expenses. Department managers, with the support of the Human Resources Department, own the last four logics and are charged with achieving the performance improvement and cost reduction strategies. They retain current customers by producing quality products, delivering exceptional service, and discovering how to conduct business better, cheaper and faster.

While you were specifically directed to identify customer attraction and retention strategies in the Customer Logic summary above, in reality, the first five logics are all growth strategies designed to grow the business by bringing in new and existing customers. The last four logics are retention strategies designed to maintain customer loyalty once the customers have been brought in.

Notice that quality and service are retention strategies, not growth strategies. Even though many business managers believe quality and service are growth strategies, this is normally not true. Customers expect your products to be made well. They also expect to be served in a superior way. Quality and service are a given, not a differentiation. No matter how hard you try or how good you become, quality and customer service will not attract new customers. Advertising that “quality is job one” or that you have the “friendliest employees in town” seldom convinces people to patronize your business. They will only be convinced of the truthfulness of your advertisements after they experience your products or service. Therefore, quality and service are retention strategies. Quality and service keep customers from defecting after they’ve patronized your business.

Of course the quality of your products and the efficiency of your service may attract new customers via word-of-mouth advertising. When people hear from others how good your products are or how friendly your people might be, they may be more inclined to patronize your business. But, again, generally speaking, businesses should not hang their strategic hopes of driving the masses to the business by emphasizing quality or service. They should instead focus on delivering quality and service, and it is how you deliver these components that will create loyal customers.

Likewise, new technology is not a growth strategy either. Normally, new technology is a means used by companies to produce their products more efficiently or effectively. “Better, faster, and cheaper” processes don’t necessarily draw in new customers. Customers will not know that your processes are better, cheaper and faster until after they have experienced them. However, new technology definitely helps to retain customers once they have experienced the new methods.

Similarly, companies who organize themselves to be more responsive to the needs of the customers do so primarily to retain business. A potential customer has no idea how responsive your company is until after they’ve done business with you. Customers don’t know how friendly, knowledgeable, or helpful your employees are until they have patronized your establishment. Consequently, organizational and human resource alignments also are retention strategies.

As stated earlier, it is the primary responsibility of your company’s leadership team to grow the business. The executive team should be focused on getting customers – generating business. Your employees are responsible to keep the customers loyal once they’ve come through the door – customer retention.

Executive management grows the business by positioning the right products to the right customers in the right market at the right price in order to attract new customers or acquire targeted customers from competing companies. Executive leaders need to be resolutely focused on the first five logics. Concurrently department managers ensure that everything within the company is aligned day-to-day to serve current and new customers in a way that ensures their loyalty. Thus, a logical external and internal focus, when properly aligned, ensures the long-term profitability and growth of the company.

CONCLUSION

Staying competitive requires a finely tuned organization where every precious company resource, both capital and human, is precisely focused and aligned with your company’s specific growth strategies. It demands a logical and rational business approach that is easy to follow and makes logical sense to your managers and employees.

Achieving future business success requires senior managers who can lead your enterprise to expanded markets and new business opportunities. It calls for department managers who, through operational excellence, build customer trust and confidence to ensure customer loyalty. It necessitates employees who know where the company is going and know how to adjust their performance to achieve the strategic objectives. It requires a commitment to your Strategic Logics at every level of the organization.

Invariably, your role as an effective manager requires that you ensure every action of your employees is tied specifically to the strategic goals and objectives of your company. When your company’s strategies and tactics are logically aligned, everything else falls into place.

Ten Things Every Employee Should Know: How to Increase One’s Personal Value at Work

We are living in very difficult economic times. Companies across the country are laying off employees in droves. Businesses are closing. The ranks of the unemployed are budging. Employees are fearful for their jobs.

As I walk the floors of client companies I hear concerned employees stressing about their future. Most feel helpless, believing their destiny is in someone else’s hands. They think there is nothing they can do to protect themselves from being laid off.

This may be true in some cases where poor management decisions have left companies with no option other than massive downsizing. But in most cases, management makes a decision of who stays and who leaves during bad economic times based upon some value judgment of the worth and contribution of the individual employee.

Therefore, every employee needs to fully grasp this simple concept: in most situations, the future of an employee’s job security rest squarely on the shoulders of the employee, not the manager. The key to maintaining one’s employment is to ensure one is employable. This applies to both one’s current job and one’s future position, should an employee find oneself out of work during tough economic times.

Employable employees will always have a job. Wise employees realize this. Astute employees know there are very specific things they can do to guarantee they remain employed and employable. Sadly, most employees never learn these basic precepts. They are seldom, if ever, taught in public schools or business management courses. Some people may be lucky enough to learn about them from a mentor. But most people either learn these principles the hard way — through experience — or they never learn them at all.

Listed below are ten important axioms I believe every employee must fully understand and internalize in order to better position oneself for success in the business world. These ten principles come from my more than 35 years of observations as a business executive and management consultant. They are ten unspoken axioms that apply in any organization. They are ten keys to an employee’s current and future success.

Axiom #1: Your work is a commodity. What you do as an employee only has value if someone is willing to pay for it. If you want people to value what you do, you need to deliver on the “implied promises” that are inherent in your job description. It’s implied that you will be honest. It’s implied that you will be on time to work. It’s implied that you will work hard and provide an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. It’s implied that you will do exactly what is expected of you by your boss. It’s implied that you will never exhibit inappropriate or off-purpose behaviors or act contrary to the good of your employer.

The better you are at delivering on the implied promises, the greater your value will be as an employee. And the greater your value is as an employee, the higher the odds are that you will always be employed.

Axiom #2: The value of your work is determined by others, not by you. As an employee you cannot tell others how valuable you are. You cannot declare how hard you work. You cannot determine the worth of what you do based upon your own perceptions of worth. Your boss – and more particularly, your customers – determines the worth of what you do as an employee.

You need to find out what others expect from you in the workplace. Focus on your “customers” and what they want. Ask your subordinates, peers and superiors what their expectations are of you. Learn their definition of success for you so you can work toward it. Don’t assume you know what it takes to succeed. Solicit the input of others and then match your performance and behaviors to the feedback you receive. In the workplace other people determine the criteria for your success, not you. You will succeed when you deliver what others expect from you.

Axiom #3: You get out of life what you give. Make sure you give your honest best effort at work. Show more interest in meeting the needs of the business, rather than your own needs. When you do all that you can at work to achieve the company’s objectives – while suspending your personal agenda – you will find that your personal needs, more than likely, will also be met. When you watch out for others, they usually watch out for you.

Axiom #4: Be supportive of your boss. Do everything within your power and ability to make your boss a hero. Discern his or her needs and objectives. Do your part (and more) to meet those needs and achieve the boss’ objectives. Be responsive to the directives and commands of your boss. Express appreciation and show your support of your boss whenever possible. Very seldom in the business world can one succeed without the support of one’s boss. The more supportive you are of your boss, the more support you can expect in return, particularly in tough economic times.

Axiom #5: Be supportive of your teammates. Help out whenever possible. Chip in when work needs to be done. Never engage in gossip, back-biting, or criticism of the members of your work team. Talk positively about your colleagues. Offer encouragement and support to your coworkers at every opportunity. Recognize the accomplishments of others and praise them liberally. Be a team player in all of your actions, words and deeds.

Axiom #6: Recognize where and how others have contributed to your success. Few great achievements were ever accomplished individually. Someone helped you get to where you are. People around you are contributing to your success. Give credit to those who support you directly or indirectly. Take only a small piece of the credit for team accomplishments. Don’t toot your own horn too loudly. When you recognize and praise others for what they have done for you, more than likely they will sound your praises in return.

Axiom #7: Speak up. Be a contributor. Share your opinion and views. Provide input. Offer your perspective. Don’t be a “yes man” when no is the right answer. Help everyone to succeed by identifying and sharing where improvements can be made. But do so wisely and kindly. Know when, where and how to offer suggestions or provide critical analysis. Have sound, valid reasoning behind your statements and never push your personal agenda. Always offer your suggestions in a kind and respectful manner.

Axiom #8: Be receptive to and a champion of change. Change is inevitable in every job. Work processes continually evolve. Good workers are always looking for ways to accomplish their work easier, faster or cheaper. Never become complacent in your work. Always look for opportunities to improve. Never resist change. When changes come accept them eagerly and adapt to them quickly. Be an early adopter of change and help others to change as well. Show management that you are willing and able to do whatever is necessary to guarantee success in the new business model.

Axiom #9: Tolerate the idiosyncrasies of your organization. Every company has something strange about it. Usually there is some trivial (or significant) thing about the way a company operates that bothers the employees. Good employees are able to look past it; and it is this tolerance that makes them especially good employees. Bad employees whine and let it affect their attitude; and it is their bad attitude that makes them bad employees. The more employees complain or fight against the idiosyncrasies of their organization the less they become a part of it. Good employees seek to build up their organization, while bad employees tear it down. Do all you can to be a non-complaining, non-criticizing employee.

Axiom #10: Be a model of excellence. Produce quality results. Provide exceptional service. Model the appropriate attitude and behaviors. Make it happen. Get it done. Do it right.

High value employees are always “go-to” employees. They are the ones who managers know will get the work done on time, on budget, and within scope. Be an employee that can always be counted on. When you are viewed as the highest value employee, you will either be the last on the list for layoffs or off the list completely. But, more important, high value employees can easily transport their high value to any organization for whom they work. There is always a place for high value employees.

Employees who consciously remember these ten axioms, and model them daily, will find their value to their company increasing. High value employees are seldom let go. Even during severe economic downturns, most companies will do all they can to retain their highest value workers.

I wish to stress that these ten axioms should constitute “normal” behavior for all employees at all times. Clearly they are important during a downturn in business, but, even in the good times, employees who model these principles – for in good times high value employees are the most likely to get promotions and pay raises. Management tends to reward employees who deliver on the implied promises, meet expectations, and focus on business results. Management appreciates those employees who support their boss and their fellow workers. Management prefers employees who speak up and offer suggestions for improvement in a kind and respectful manner. The best candidates for promotion are those who are receptive to change, tolerate the company’s idiosyncrasies, and who model the appropriate performance, attitude and behaviors each and every day at work.

Wise employees realize their employment future is within their own hands. To a great extent they control their own destiny in the workplace. They can choose to accept these ten axioms or reject them; and, by so doing, either reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of their choice.