Of course, you can’t just give your people a condescending “you did great!” plaque and call it a day. I can’t remember if my face ever decorated an “employee of the month” sign at the fast food joints I worked at in highschool, but I can say that it wouldn’t have motivated me. What would have, though, would have been having a say-so in a few of the areas where I could have contributed valuable ideas and insight.

Include Me

If you’re serious about great performance (who am I kidding- you’re reading our blog, so you must be!) then you need to be serious about taking your employees serious. OK, that might be confusing, but picture this: what’s going to engage your people better- your executive team presenting your company’s business strategy and performance management system as if you just climbed down from the mountain with them written on stone tablets, or… you taking the time to ask them their ideas, needs and wants- FIRST?

Fall is usually the season for strategic planning. So, as we roll into it we all have a powerful opportunity to actively engage our employees and include them in the planning process. It may not always be possible or even best to include everyone in actually charting the final course, BUT by asking for input on the outset, we can secure a stronger bond that makes employees feel more capable, appreciated and needed. And during unsure economic times, employee loyalty is a costly thing to ignore.

Unleash My Potential

So how can we include our employees?

• Survey your staff. Ask questions about how they see their roles, what direction they think the company should take, or what you should be doing better, or even not doing at all.
• Re-visit your company’s values and vision. While your mission shouldn’t change often, many companies find re-aligning their vision and/or values an important part of keeping their company competitive and acknowledging the changing culture of our environment.
• Sit down and chat. Managers can learn a great deal when they give employees a chance to talk openly and honestly about their every day tasks, perceived inefficiencies, or even how their performance is managed.
• Keep them posted. Let your people know exactly what stages you are in with your strategic or performance management planning process. Let everyone know who is involved, when and why. Even if you’re calling the final shots, everyone finds value in being able to shape their destiny.

Lastly, as Erica says, “helping your employees see the vision that you have for success and growth helps you work toward that goal. Organizations that have a clear direction have committed people.”

So, why do so many people try so hard to manage themselves and still fall short? Most people want to perform. They want to accomplish great things, but never seem to catch up on everything they are given to do in the course of a day. How many times have you said to yourself, “it’s five o’clock and my to-do list is bigger than it was when I got here at eight?”

For most of us, it’s a matter of overhauling our personal performance management systems, and finding a way to avoid the following five traps that so often trip us up:

Failure to see the big picture

Your performance management system should have a reason behind it. If you’re reading this, chances are that your current system, if you have one, isn’t working to some degree, and this is the most common reason. Instead of just jumping into your mountain of tasks, stop first and ask yourself”why am I doing all of these things?”

There must be a reason why you work. The answer for you may be (more…)

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
2. Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­sonal experiences.
3. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
4. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
5. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
6. Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions.
7. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
8. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
9. Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Eerily familiar, no?

You may (or may not) be surprised to find out that these actually come from a 1944 publication titled “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” presented by the US Office of Strategic Services (a proto-CIA).

So, how well are you doing at sabotaging your business?

Found via boingboing.net. Original manual PDF link here.

Below you’ll find info on why we put things off and even more examples of how to fight that unproductive habit!

According to LifeHack, there are 6 main reasons why we procrastinate:

Reasons we Procrastinate:

1. Projects seem too complex to begin
2. Projects seem unpleasant
3. Inability to prioritize
4. Inability to make decisions
5. Fear of failure
6. Distractions

How to Fight Procrastination

Just to make sure we can fight off procrastinate, let’s add an extra point on how to quit doing it! From Pick the Brain, we find 7 ways to fight procrastination by growing the action habit.

1. Don’t wait until conditions are perfect - If you’re waiting to start until conditions are perfect, you probably never will.
2. Be a doer - Practice doing things rather than thinking about them.
3. Remember that ideas alone don’t bring success - Ideas are important, but they’re only valuable after they’ve been implemented.
4. Use action to cure fear - Have you ever noticed that the most difficult part of public speaking is waiting for your turn to speak?
5. Start your creative engine mechanically - One of the biggest misconceptions about creative work is that it can only be done when inspiration strikes.
6. Live in the present - Focus on what you can do in the present moment.
7. Get down to business immediately - It’s common practice for people to socialize and make small talk at the beginning of meetings.

I encourage you to check out the posts for further information and have a productive week!

Business Performance Management: Crucial, but tough to implement

Business Performance Management, or BPM, is defined as “a framework for organizing, automating and analyzing business methodologies, metrics, processes and systems that drive business performance.” Basically, it’s a system for maintaining alignment between your company’s resources and your strategy. For employees, it usually determines how they are compensated and held accountable by their managers.

So, why do so many BPM systems fail to be adopted? I think it comes down to a matter of trust. Does your staff really BELIEVE that this new system or program will make a difference? In the mind of the average employee, “if it’s going to change the way I do things or give me extra tasks, there better be a payoff.”

Instead of buying a system and expecting it to work, there must be a plan in place to encourage adoption and manage the system for success. Otherwise, many in the company will fail to trust in it.

According to a recent study by BPM Authority, Sibson Consulting, Only 30 percent of employees actually trust their company’s performance management system. Less than one third! That means that as a manager or business owner, you have more than 2 thirds of your company to convince if you’re going to implement a BPM solution.

What builds trust?

Communication: Sibson’s Senior VP concluded from the results of the study that “the organizations getting the most impact from performance management are those that have strong leadership support and that execute well in differentiating performance and giving performance messages.” There absolutely has to be strong support communicated from senior executives. It must be clear, and each employee must know inside and out how the system will impact them positively. More communication nearly always means more trust.

Consistency: It’s far too easy to lose momentum for a new system as soon as everyone gets back to their regular jobs. As we’ve said at MSP, someone at your company should be appointed to champion your system in order to make it work. Messages need to be repeated and employees need to see results consistently- then they’ll trust the system.

Coaching: Listed along with Sibson’s study is a quote from Research Ranager Dr. Lise Flores-Reed, that the results of the study “suggest there is opportunity for organizations to enable their managers to become more effective at communicating performance messages and coaching their employees around performance issues.” Encouraging, inspiring coaching of employees is key to successful performance management.

For more information on making your performance management system work for you, check out our article How to Get the Most of Performance Management Software.

The most encouraging trend is the continuing importance that companies are placing on managing performance:

Best Business Decision: BPM is no longer being placed on the back burner, and companies are adopting performance management in droves. For many years, BPM has primarily been picked up on by the higher end of the mid-market. In 2007, we saw many smaller companies as well as some of the largest organizations jump in. Clearly, performance management has hit the mainstream. The trend in prior years to focus on putting out fires and getting to BPM “eventually” has been replaced by doing BPM in parallel with other pressing projects.

Clearly, managing performance is no longer only a practice of fortune 500 companies, as many smaller and mid-sized businesses are beginning to take notice and reap the benefits.

How did you do last year?

This is a great opportunity for you to break out your strategic plan and review your company’s goals. How many did you reach? If your team performed well this year and your company is on track, make sure you didn’t forget to reward everyone involved. The new year is a perfect time to set new, more challenging goals!

If you or your company had a hard time meeting your goals, take some time to review your plan. Are all of your goals specific, measurable, attainable, assigned to a responsible person and time specific? Were there external events that occurred outside your control? Was there a breakdown in accountability? Remember, if you do have to make changes, the beginning of the year is a great time since people are naturally ready to accept new things.

Does Every Employee Understand the Direction of the Company is Headed?

Strategy isn’t something that is performed by management, it’s a function of your whole company. If the boss knows exactly where he or she wants to go, but the employees don’t, then the company’s strategic plan won’t help- there needs to be clear communication of goals, measures and responsibilities. When employees know how their efforts will impact the company’s progress and how they’ll be rewarded, the company’s plan is a powerful tool.

What are Your Milestones This Year?

Have you decided what your main objectives are? Make sure that you and everyone at your organization knows how close you are to achieving them. Each milestone should be something that you celebrate, however you choose to. This way you can maintain critical momentum all year long.

Once again from the M3 Team, here’s to a powerful 2008 full of growth in your organization!

Smart
companies have learned how to adapt to the changing business landscape.
David H. Freedman of Inc. magazine identified the "spin-up" trend in
early 2005 when Apple launched the iPod and handed that company its
first runaway hit in years. And we’re likely to see history repeat
itself with the launch of the iPhone later this month. The basic idea
is simple: Instead of thinking in terms of expanding the company as a
whole, Apple has focused on new, fast-growth, "spin-up" business units
with their own identities - even if it meant letting other parts of the
company languish.
                  
Hewlett-Packard’s
photo-printer business likewise exploded, and the same approach works
in other industries too. Savvy restaurateurs create entirely new
concepts and occasionally even close or reinvent existing ones when
their cachet fades. Smart fashion and sporting goods firms whip up new
independent brands to "surf the fad of the moment". According to
Freedman, the "trickiest part of the spin-up is to have the flexibility
to bring a promising new aspect of a business quickly to the fore
without worrying about what gets left behind." Unlike traditional
businesses that tend to be so fixated on preserving the same core
business that potentially hot new markets are poorly served (if at
all), a "spin-up creates a new brand identity". This way of thinking
about a company encourages you to see the business not as a seamless
whole but as a "fractured conglomeration" of potentially independent
units.

It’s important to take a high-level look at your
market when you need a complete picture of your company. Consider these
steps:

1. List the three to five main markets you compete in. Also list one or two that are new potential markets.
2. For each market, determine if it is growing, shrinking, or staying the same.
3. Determine the size of each market.
4. Determine if serving the market presents an opportunity or if the market is not worth focusing on.
5. Summarize the markets you want to focus on in your opportunities section of your SWOT.

Think about your favorite Olympic athlete. Do you think the
athlete’s goal is foremost on her mind every day? You
bet it is. That’s why it’s your job and your manager’s
job to act as a coach to get Olympic-level performances out
of all your people. In addition to focusing on the goal, Olympic
athletes are incredibly disciplined. Executing goals that were
set months ago is no different. It requires that same level
of commitment and discipline.

This is where you and your managers need to lead rather than
fight fires and do detail work. By acting as a coach, use the
plan as your framework to guide your team to high performance.
What do coaches do?

Encourage: Everyone needs to feel like they’re
doing a good job and are appreciated for their hard work. Coaches
say encouraging words to their team to keep them motivated and
engaged.

Support: Without the right skills and resources
for the job, no amount of prodding and pushing will get it done.
Coaches support their teams by making sure they have the training,
knowledge, and ability to complete the task.

Yell at the right time: Just like athletic
coaches know when to yell, managers need to know when to “push”
their team when they need it. A good coach knows when performance
is lagging and when to turn on the pressure.

Bring out the best: Seeing the strengths and
weaknesses of your team allows you to bring out the best in
your staff. Coaches know how to make you the best you can be.

Monitor performance: Keeping track of how
everyone is performing is another trait of a good coach. With
the goals you set, you can assist your employee in creating
an action plan if it isn’t already established and keep
them on the path toward achieving it. Meet with the employee
regularly to discuss the status of goal accomplishment. Coach
your team when there are setbacks or roadblocks and recognize
and reward employees for achievements.

Failure to monitor and address advances may negatively impact your financial position in the market. Areas to watch include government spending on technology, big new discoveries or products, speed of technology transfer, and changes in business processes as a result of technology.

Here are some trends over the next ten years that may be opportunities or threats to your business:

• Embedding the Internet in every part of our lives: Internet technologies make it easier to have strategic partnerships; put the customer more in control of the buying process; reduce the costs of customer service; offer new ways to recruit, train, and retain employees; and provide new communication tools.
• Growth of robots: Robots and other automation-based technologies handle most repetitive tasks.
• More open source programs: Open source software - where the programming code that runs the application is accessible to anyone - is expected to grab more than 20 percent of the world-wide software market in five years. The estimated cost to software makers is $100 billion in revenue, according to the Gartner Group.

With more than 63 million Americans expected to be hooked up to broadband by 2008, companies large and small are making serious money by doing everything from working virtually, to offering online services, to distributing anything that is digital. Skype, the world’s fastest growing Internet telephony provider, was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion. Why the large price tag? It boasted more than 54 million customers worldwide using its service, virtually free.

BizStats: Visit www.bizstats.com for instant access to useful financial ratios, business statistics, and benchmarks. Biz Stats has effective and understandable analysis of businesses and industries. You can benchmark a business in five seconds for free.

Solution Sage: An online tool for assessing middle market business strategic and succession readiness. The Family Business Assessment is a simple and inexpensive strategic and succession assessment tool available to family business owners and their professional advisors. Visit www.solutionsage.com for more information.

DigitalHatch, Inc.: This company looks at the key areas successful organizations need in order to grow. The activity areas are specifically correlated to profitability so business owners can see the direct link between action and ROI. Industry specific assessments are available. Point your Web browser to www.growthassessment.com.

The Business Report Card: This assessment helps companies pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, capitalize on an existing client base, develop invaluable networks and alliances, and increase profitability. To see if you’re making the grade, go to The Business Report Card at www.mybusinessreportcard.com.

B2B Benchmarking Association: This association brings together a variety of companies for the purpose of process improvement and identification of "Best Practice" companies through benchmarking. Check them out online at http://b2bbenchmarking.com

Since you should have already identified your strengths and weaknesses as
part of reviewing your strategic position in step 3, this next step should be
fairly easy. But don’t underestimate the value of consensus. The one concept
that most business owners, executives, and managers forget is that the lack of
a decision results in more derailments of the mission than any other cause.

I encourage you to not get caught up in a search for a single method of
evaluating all the strategic choices that may be in front of you. In my
experience, there is no single fail-safe method. Instead, set some parameters
or rules that are specific to your operating environment and use them to
evaluate your strategic choices. Some categories of rules might include the following:

PRIORITY RULE: You may prioritize some opportunities over others based on
their connection to reaching your vision.

TIMING RULE: You may prioritize opportunities based on how much money you
want to see returned in a set time period.

BOUNDARY RULE: You may prioritize every opportunity based on whether it is
aligned with your organization’s core mission and values.

HOW-TO RULE: You may qualify opportunities by first sketching out potential
implementation strategies before committing to them. If you can’t clearly
define an action plan, you know that trying to execute it will likely go
poorly.

At this point, you will also need to divide your choices into two groups –
those that have internal implications and those that have external
implications. Internal priorities include everything related to productivity
improvement such as employees, operations, technology, and anything else that
deals with the internal operations of your organization. External priorities,
meanwhile, include everything that’s related to revenue generation such as
entering new target markets, new product lines, and partnering with other
organizations. Grouping your priorities like this helps you to compare similar
things when making trade-offs which are likely as you proceed. For example,
choosing between investing in new technology or hiring new people are both
expense decisions with similar outcomes, while choosing between entering a new
market or implementing a succession plan aren’t directly related.

Finally, you’ll also need to pare your options down to a
select few. I recommend that you strive for three to five internal and external
priorities. If you have too many, you may lose focus as your plan becomes too
big. If you find it hard to limit your priorities, consider creating a
“someday” list of priorities that are important and deserve attention some day.

Now, you should be ready to starting organizing your plan
which we’ll tackle next time. In the meantime, keep in mind that agreeing on
priorities is all about maintaining focus. There are a lot of bright shiny
ideas and trends out there in the business landscape to distract your
attention, but successful strategic planning requires focus.

You may already be familiar with the trusted business
planning tool called the SWOT, but just in case, let me quickly review. SWOT is
an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. These
key factors are crucial in assessing your organization’s strategic position.
You’ll want to build on your company’s strengths, shore up the weaknesses,
capitalize on any opportunities and recognize any threats that may exist.

Your organization’s strengths encompass everything that
your company does well. Ask yourself what the company’s capabilities, skills
and resources are that you can draw on to execute plans and actions. Consider
your human and organizational capital, the company financial resources, and
operational processes. This should be your assessment of what’s working in your
organization. To see if your organization is making the grade, go to The
Business Report Card at www.mybusinessreportcard.com.

Your weaknesses, conversely, encompass those things that
are holding your company back from achieving your goals or serving customers.
Ask yourself what might be hindering your organization from reaching its full
potential. What are the impediments to your success? Maybe your technology
management is outdated or perhaps your employees aren’t working together
optimally as a team. Or consider your employee retention rate. Does your
organization spin its wheels hiring and training employees only to lose them
within a short time?

It’s worth noting here that it is equally important to
assess your strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of your customers.
It’s very likely that your organization could be conducting more business with
your existing customers by looking at your operations through their
perspective. Additionally, once you’re armed with this information, you can
make strategic decisions that raise your worth in the eyes of those customers
you value most.

Along with the internal assessments of your
organization’s strengths and weaknesses, reviewing
your strategic position also includes evaluating external opportunities and
threats in the marketplace. There are issues, trends, and events that can
conspire to positively or negatively impact your business, and reacting
proactively will better help you determine your strategic position.

Opportunities that exist may be political or social, or
they may be environmental or technological. Consider the graying of America.
Does this development dramatically increase your potential market? Or consider
the increasing diversity of the population. Is there an untapped market out
there for you?

Maybe the opportunities are in your industry. If there
are big startup costs or regulatory hurdles associated with your industry it
could be an opportunity for your company to capitalize on its established
business presence in the marketplace by expanding its offerings or product
lines.

Of course, conversely, these same factors that may be
opportunities could also be threats. What if the ageing population spells the
demise of your market share? Or what if your company hasn’t already addressed
meeting the demands of an increasingly diverse population?

Some of these issues may never have a bearing on your
business, but it’s important to keep in mind that your operating environment is
the outside circle influencing your business. And don’t forget to ask for help
– objective input can help you see parts you may have missed.

To better evaluate your strategic position use our SWOT tool.

I
think it’s important to stress here that
successful strategic planning is a continuous process. It isn’t just a
one-time event; you need to make it a habit. I know how easy it is to get lost
in the process, especially when you’re also in the middle of your
organizations’ everyday operations, and in the coming weeks I’d like to share
some suggestions that should help you embed successful strategic planning
concepts into your organization. Consider them an easy-to-follow Strategic
Planning Process Checklist to help keep your team on track.

First,
I urge you to “Get Ready and Get
Organized”. This may sound elementary, but you’d be surprised by the number
of businesses that sabotage their strategic planning efforts by poor
preparation. Take your time here; this is about your past, present and future.
I encourage you to identify the specific issues and choices your strategic plan
should address. I’ll elaborate on this topic later, but for now you should
start thinking about where it is exactly you want your organization to go.
(i.e. Start thinking “big picture” and “end game”) Determine your organizational readiness.
(i.e. Do you have complete commitment and support from top leadership and key
management? Is yours a culture that is open to looking beyond the status quo to
find new ways of doing things?) Create your planning committee (i.e. Who will
you rely on to implement your strategic plan? Who will be you plan
administrator and who will be your most valuable players?). And finally,
identify the information which must be collected to help make sound decisions. (i.e.
What reporting is necessary to access your current situation and measure your
efforts in reaching your goals?) A plan is only as good as the information on
which it’s based. Don’t rely on assumptions or hunches. Again, I can’t stress
enough that you can never underestimate the power of preparation and research.

Please
join me as we continue down the Strategic Planning Process Checklist in this
space. Next time, I’ll discuss “Articulating
your mission and vision”. Meanwhile, keep in mind that success is not a matter of chance, but rather success is a matter of
choice.

Catalytica Pharmaceuticals: A 1,700 employee, Mountain View, California-based pharmaceutical outsourcer that made the world’s supply of such drugs as AZT and Wellbutrin. The company was founded in 1993 and was sold to DSM of Holland for $800 million in 2000.

MLMReporter.com: Founded in 2000, this company, which sells online marketing programs and systems, was sold two years later to KMT Media for just under $250,000 in April 2002.

Paypal: An online payment service based in San Jose was sold to eBay three years after it was founded for $1.5 billion in stock in June 2002.

MySpace: A social networking website (the fourth most popular English language website as of May 2006), was sold to media giant News Corp for $580 million in 2006 three years after it was founded.

Take the Tour de Nez, a small local cycling race. It was started 13 years ago by Tim Healion, owner of Reno’s first coffeehouse Deux Gros Nez, to celebrate the restaurant’s anniversary. Over the years, the event has grown from a bunch of revelers riding bikes to a pro cycling event with eight different races. With the growth also came the pre-event expenses. Although Tim was experiencing national recognition and wild success, the financial viability of the race became more and more dire. For a while the coffeehouse profits were used to finance cash shortfalls. But eventually, the event’s cash demands became even too much to finance internally. The result? Tim narrowly avoiding going broke this year through some big sponsorship sales. But next year presents the same issues again. His accounts payables continually outpace his accounts receivable, no matter how successful the event is.

How do you avoid going broke? Protect your balance sheet at all costs. Most businesses owners get caught up in the income statement showing growth in sales. But it’s easy to overlook how this growth impacts the balance sheet. Most of the cash in the business is actually generated and consumed on the balance sheet (by buying inventory, carrying receivables, paying off creditors, and buying fixed assets). Therefore, any time sales go up, it has an immediate and direct impact on both cash flow and the balance sheet. Understanding these relationships holds the key to surviving rapid sales growth.

Considering the time and effort you invest in
your business, it may be hard to stand back and see your company from a
different perspective. Discover strategies that will help you to
understand how customers experience your business.

By Tara Remiasz

Imagine you’re traveling for business. After your flight takes off
and you settle into your seat, you suddenly smell freshly baked
chocolate chip cookies. After a while, you see the flight attendants
handing the cookies out to everyone. When you finally take a bite of
your cookie, you congratulate yourself for choosing an airline with
such a great perk.

Several years ago, an employee for Canadian Airlines International
devised the idea that baking and serving fresh cookies would be a great
way to enhance the customer experience, says Paul Levesque, author, CEO
and founder of Customer Focus Breakthroughs Inc. based in California.
The idea of serving fresh cookies may sound simple, but it required a
solid understanding of the customers’ experience before the idea could
be developed.

Often times it is difficult for owners and workers to grasp the
customer experience because they are so ingrained in the minutia of
running the business. Here are some strategies that will help you to
see your business from a customer’s perspective.

Break It Down
Levesque says he had consulted with Canadian Airlines
International about how to brainstorm customer service ideas. It is
likely that a process like the one he taught Canadian Airlines
International personnel was used in the brainstorming session that
produced the fresh cookie idea. According to Levesque, you cannot
separate employee motivation from the issue of customer service. Asking
employees how to improve customer service has two inherent benefits: 1)
Because of their daily dealings with customers, workers possess unique
insights into the customer experience. 2) Employees will have a
stronger desire to see initiatives enacted if they generate the ideas,
as opposed to just following a mandated policy.

Ask employees to break down the customer experience into each step
in the transaction, Levesque says. For example: First, the customer
arrives in the parking lot. Second, the customer enters through the
front door. Third, an employee greets the customer. And so on. Each
step will be based on the type of business you run, whether it is on
the Internet or a brick-and-mortar operation.

Once the customer experience has been broken down into each step,
it’s time to apply three customer service principles to each phase of
the process. You and your employees should consider how your business
can exceed expectations, make the customer feel important and tailor the experience to individual categories of customers.

Levesque offers an example of how all three of these principals were
realized when he visited the Magic Kingdom and spotted a braille map of
the entire park. The existence of this map went beyond what most
patrons probably expected, demonstrated that visually impaired visitors
are important, and that the Magic Kingdom considers how to enhance
everyone’s experience.

Ask Your Customers
Perhaps the only people who can vouch for the customer
experience better than your workers are the customers themselves.
Former customers can provide you with a wealth of information on how to
improve operations, says Erica Olsen, vice president of marketing for
Reno, Nev.-based MyStrategicPlan.

Olsen suggests having a third-party call former customers for
feedback. Instead of directly asking ‘Why don’t you frequent our
business anymore?’ she suggests couching the question in terms of ‘We
are trying to become more effective as an organization and would value
your feedback.’

When you conduct surveys of existing customers, it’s essential that
you ask if the primary job was done correctly, she says. Often times,
surveys focus on specific details and overlook basic questions such as
how well a business achieved its central goal.

There’s no magic number in terms of how many surveys you should
conduct, but Olsen suggests that you do enough to see patterns in
people’s answers. Allow yourself the necessary time to gather feedback,
rather than conducting too few interviews before making changes. She
also stresses the importance of giving something back in return for
your customers’ feedback. By offering a discount or small gift card,
you are in fact acknowledging that you value your customers’ time.

A Little Help From Your Friends
Andrew Field, CEO and founder of PrintingForLess.com, Inc., in
Livingston, Mont., also endorses the idea of conducting surveys. Field
suggests using a one to seven rating scale that covers how a certain
transaction went, and also how important that particular transaction is
for the customer.

In addition to tapping employees and customers for feedback, Field
recommends professional mystery shoppers or simply employing the
services of friends and family to mystery shop your operation. Field
learned the value of mystery shopping accidentally, after his mother
placed an order for brochures from his company. When the box of
brochures arrived at her door, Field’s mother was dismayed to find that
the box had been damaged in transit and some of the brochures had been
ruined. Several of Field’s sales reps confirmed that this problem
occasionally occurred with their clients’ shipments. Armed with this
new information, Field’s company instituted a policy of shrink-wrapping
bundles of paper goods and then double boxing each shipment.

Whether you decide to use a professional mystery shopping service or
friends and family, the key is to obtain objective, unbiased
information about how a customer experienced your company. Be sure to
obtain feedback on everything from how the customer was greeted to the
quality and timeliness of service.

Momentum,
by its nature, requires a lot of upfront push to get the ball rolling.
Here are ten tips to jumpstart the momentum in your life:

Create your picture of success and make it a reality.
It’s true – if you can’t see your vision of success, you’ll never get
there. So what does success look like for you day to day? How do you
want to spend your time? How do you want to define success for yourself
this year. Write your vision down and post it somewhere you will see it
everyday.

Know what you love and do what you love. You
know what they say, either fix the problem or quite complaining about
it. If you hate your job, get a new one. Go to school and learn a new
profession. Start that business you’ve always dreamed of. Pick up that
crazy hobby you’ve been thinking about. Sound too scary? Facing too
many roadblocks (time, money, naysayers)? Why not tackle one of them.
Explore your options, and then take action. There is no time like the
present!
       

Pick a BHAG.
What is that big, hairy, audacious goal you want to achieve this year
that will help you step into your vision of success? Write it down
along with the one thing you can do today to make it happen. Here is an
example of the power of a written goal: A study was conducted among a
graduating class at Harvard to see how many had concrete goals around
how much money they wanted to make. Only 3% had written their goals
down. Ten years later, that 3% were making more than the other 97%
combined! Now that is power!

Eliminate your energy drains and recharge yourself.
Energy drains are those things that drag you down. Things that recharge
your energy can be anything that inspires you and puts you in a good
mood, like a room in your house, a place to relax, an activity, or a
person. Spend more time doing the things that give you energy and stick
a post-it next to each drain with an idea for getting rid of it.

Remove your fears.
The greatest source of procrastination is often a deep-seeded fear –
fear of success, change, failure, ridicule, the unknown. Take a daily
step to remove your fears by asking yourself every day, “What would I
do today, if I were not afraid?”

Take control of your finances.
Do you feel like you are on a treadmill, working more to pay for ever
increasing bills? It seems like the more we work, the more we spend to
do the things we don’t have time to do while we are working
(housekeeper, take-out food, dry cleaner, etc.). Spend a little less
here and a little less there and stop hemorrhaging money. Make sure
what you purchase is in line with your values. Run a QuickBooks report
to see exactly what you are spending your money on. What if you
decreased every category (except maybe your mortgage and other loan
payments) by 10%? Use your money to fuel your dreams instead of feeding
the treadmill.

Create a braintrust.
Identify a handful of people in your life who can help you move your
life forward. Consider pulling from a wide range of backgrounds, ages,
experience and opinions. Sometimes those who are most critical provide
the best insights. Call on them together or individually to help you
move past any roadblocks and keep the momentum going.

Find the time. One
of the biggest challenges to having the life we want is finding the
time to do all we want to do. Track how you spend your time for a week.
At the end, tally up the time spent on each thing – such as sleeping,
eating, shopping, checking email, etc. Look at each category. What
things can you do to cut time in each area? Be creative and find the
time to do what you love to do, instead of what you have to do.
       

Let things evolve. When
the flywheel of momentum starts to turn, pay attention to clues,
connections, and opportunities that are presented to you. Allow your
future to unfold and change in ways you might not have been able to
imagine when you started dreaming.

Commit to your dreams.
Creating momentum starts with commitment. Commit to doing one of the
ideas above that will move you closer to your dreams.
       

We all know that life is short. So, shouldn’t we all live the best life we possibly can?
Absolutely! Because remember – how we spend our days, is how we spend our lives.         

Erica Olsen is the vice president of marketing for M3 Planning (www.m3planning.com),
which helps growth-oriented organizations develop and execute their
strategies. Erica is also the author of the newly released Strategic
Planning For Dummies. Carol McClelland is the owner of Transition
Dynamics (www.transitiondynamics.com) and author of Your Dream Career For Dummies.

Dan Bobinski http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=opinion&id=2837

Here’s an experiment you can try: Walk into a company’s office and find its mission statement hanging on a wall. Take note of its meanings, and then speak to any five people you meet from that company. Ask them if they know their company’s mission. Chances are you’ll hear either five different responses, or the ever-popular, "I don’t know." Some people may even laugh at you. It’s no small wonder the majority of employees scoff at mission statements. Usually what we see is fluff - overly vague generalizations that could apply to almost any company, and often they’re paragraphs long; too long to be recalled by anyone, and therefore, largely useless. The problem is made worse when vision and mission statements are intermixed, further clouding their practicality. At the core of this all-too-common problem is a simple lack of understanding. Ask those same five people you talked to earlier to define "vision" and "mission" and you’re likely to get an equally wide range of responses. So, with the intention of making life more simple and companies more profitable, I offer an easy-to-remember way to create clearly understood - and useful - vision and mission statements. Here are some definitions (and differences), in very simple terms: Vision Statement: Where you "see" yourself being; where you want to go Mission Statement: What you do to get there In a more practical example: Vision: Widget Manufacturing will be known worldwide as the highest quality widget producer. Mission: Widget Manufacturing strives to: research and integrate the latest, most reliable widget technology, use the most reliable widget manufacturing processes, and provide unparalleled customer service to every widget customer. Note that the vision is not what they do, but where they want to be. The mission statement outlines what Widget Manufacturing will do. The differences are clear, and quite simple. Most of the time a company keeps its vision statement to itself, since where a company sees itself being is nobody else’s business. Besides, if the competition knew where you wanted to be, they could easily create a strategy that gets in your way. The purpose of a vision statement is to guide top leadership when making strategic decisions. A mission statement clarifies what your company does. You want people to know what you do - both internally and externally. Internally, it keeps employees focused and it forms a basis for making tactical decisions. In other words, if two options for action are on the table, looking at them in light of the mission statement often helps in choosing a course of action that moves a company in the direction of its vision. Externally, publishing your mission statement tells your clients what they can expect from you. Just knowing that provides them a sense of stability and security, and they’ll be more comfortable doing business with you. Does a company need a vision and mission statement to function? Obviously not. The mere fact that so many companies survive without them answers that question. So what’s the benefit of having them? Again, the answer is focus, flow, and a foundation for decisions. In other words, thriving instead of surviving. Aligning our efforts with an agreed-upon focus saves both time and frustration, and it makes a company much more profitable. For example, much strife exists in companies due to no shared focus. When a company lacks a vision to which all subscribe, individual visions and missions tend to rise up and compete with each other. The result is conflict, delays, and lost revenues, all because of unnecessary turf wars consuming time and energy. Creating a clear corporate vision minimizes big pet projects and helps point everyone in the same direction. Your mission statement should be posted on a company website, on published literature, and throughout a company’s brick and mortar structures so people can see it, be reminded of it, and use it as a guideline for operations. Everyone from the top on down should be able to recite it from memory, and recite it often. If top management eats, drinks, and breathes the mission statement, everyone else will, too. If top management ignores it, so will everyone else. Ideally, mission statements should not be more than one sentence long. A couple of bullet points (such as in the example given) are fine, but multiple paragraphs are not practical for keeping people focused, and are therefore ineffective. If you find your mission covers a lot of ground, find a way to boil it down; it can be done if you take the time. Bottom line, vision and mission statements create clarity and form a basis for making both strategic and tactical decisions - all of which help a company thrive instead of survive. If thriving profitability is what you seek and your company vision and mission are unclear or non-existent, investing time to clarify these statements will help.

This article comes from www.management-issues.com