Turnaround requires a leadership change

If an organization, such as a company, needs a turnaround, it’s because the leader, with their best thinking and actions, has led the company into this predicament.

If that is you, ouch.  Sorry.  But I’ve been there.  Your best thinking got you here.  Right?

In a public company, they change out the leader.  You can get someone to run your company better than you can – I have seen that even in 30-person companies.  

But let’s say it’s your baby, and you are still going to be the leader.  If you’re not going to change the leader, then the leader must change.

If you’re going to do a turnaround, you need to do the turning.

As the leader goes, so goes the business.

What attitudes/premises/ideas are you going to change?  What do you have to learn?  What do you have to give up?  What work do you need to do on yourself?  Who do you need to help you?  Who do you need to hire? How do you get the people you already have to help you turn it around?  

Crazy incentives, crazy behavior.

People can justify almost any action if they are incentivized to take that action.

At one big roofing company I know of, the sales managers were paid a percentage of sales.  So, they got the salespeople to sell a lot, and did not care how they did it – even if they dropped the price or promised crazy warranties.  While the salespeople and sales managers made out like bandits, the company was losing money on every sale.

At the same time, the production manager started his own subcontractors that he hired to do the work.  He paid them peanuts while he billed the company a little over going rate.  Of course, he didn’t care if they rushed through the jobs, didn’t do things well, or worked unsafely.

When there was a service call because of shoddy work, the production manager either ignored the customer, or billed the company for the service call!

Then there was the issue of materials.  Since his own subs got paid by amount of shingles they were putting on, he always ordered 30% more shingles from the supplier than were necessary.  The subcontractor (him) got paid to install what was ordered, and at the end of the job, guess where the extra materials went?  To his house where he had a stockpile to rival any supply yard.  

Obviously, leadership was asleep or afraid or stupid.  Maybe some of each.  A public company owned this company, so the leader had his own incentives and he was getting his share, and had no urgency to fix the problems, even if he could.

As you can guess, the company went out of business in spectacular fashion.  But they sure were doing a lot of business right up until then.

In politics, the community, your family, your team or club, incentives drive behavior.

The good news is that you can design incentives to stimulate good behavior.  The key is to watch out for unintended consequences, which can be significant.  Think it through.  What will people do?  Will it get ugly in some way?

Don’t make it complicated, but create incentives to unlock the attention, thought, and best behavior of your team.

Create white space to think and get clarity

If your schedule is so jammed – meetings, phone calls, meetings, people asking you questions, “emergencies”, that you don’t have time to really observe and think, you are out of control.

You have to set up your week so you have empty space.  It will be hard enough not to give it away or fill it up, but you need time to gain clarity, think about what is going on, and make good decisions.  

Do you have enough white space in your schedule?

Hired yourself again?

You doing it all?  

You hired yourself again?  But you already had a full-time job…

If you want to own a job and work a LOT, keep going this way.

If you want to own a company and scale and have more freedom, learn to lead others and get the best out of them while accomplishing the goals of your organization.

You don’t scale.

Sales Illusions

A salesperson can create the illusion that your product/service is as it really is, better than it really is, or worse than it really is.

You could have a new start-up or a company with iffy service and the salesperson can make it sound great.

You could be the number one company in the industry but your salesperson is lazy, doesn’t listen, is not compelling, or takes customer for granted.

Day in, day out – salespeople are important!

What illusion do your salespeople present?

How do you know?

The ultimate competitive advantage

The Ultimate competitive advantage – you out-recruit your competition.

Whoever has the best team wins.

Do you try to get to know the top performers in your industry?

Do you have a reason for them to work at your company?

Do you talk to them about it?

Getting people who already know your business and are good at it is a big training shortcut and you aren’t taking a chance on someone new as to whether they will be suited for this type of work or not.

Out-recruit your competition.

What is work?

Last week we had a post about working 75 hour weeks.  My son Tanner commented asking what is work anyway?  It’s a gray area.  

For example, when you get out of work, what do you do?  If you go in the garage to work on your classic car, is that work?  It certainly is a job that other people do for money.  If you take care of the kids – some people take care of kids for a living.  Is that work?

I might go in the woods with a chain saw, or strap on my carpenter tool belt, or be building or maintaining something – all things other people do for a living.  Is that “work”? 

My post was not to say that when you leave your work “place” or fold up your laptop for the day, that you should sit on the couch.  There are always things to do – interesting things, projects, and things that are work that you do not because you get paid for it, but because you like/love it or it’s a part of maintaining your lifestyle. 

The context of my saying not to work 75 hours a week was for entrepreneurs – the owner, who can easily fall into the trap of thinking they have to do too much in their business and don’t empower others to do work they used to do when the company was smaller, but graduated from as the company got bigger.

Define your job as the leader so it fits into the hours you want to work.  Keep shedding duties until you can get home by the time you want to get home each day and not feel like you didn’t get all “your” work done.

Most all activity can be called “work”.  Doing things because you want to feels far different than doing things because you think you “have to”.

Control the inputs

Like good ingredients put together make a great cake, good inputs put together make a great result in your life.

Listen to good information/teachings/inspiration.

Eat well/ move well/ sleep well.

Do some good thinking. 

Make good decisions.

Do your best each hour and day.

Help others, add value and be nice.

If you can string all these good things together and be consistent, good things will happen to you and for you and because of you.

The point of it all…

A big shot businessman went on vacation to a small beautiful fishing village.  There he saw fisherman set out in the morning on their boats to fish a while. After several hours they returned with enough fish to sell in the market.  Then they would have a nice lunch, take a nap, and go into town and sip wine with their friends and families and have dinner.  

The businessman said “Hey you guys make a living by working a few hours a day.  You should work ALL day and catch way more fish.  In fact, you should invest in bigger boats and nets and catch a ton of fish.  You could make a ton of money at the market selling all that fish.  Keep that up for 30 years and invest your money wisely and you’ll have a fortune!”

“Then what?” they asked.

“Well, then you can buy a house in a town by the water, and do a little fishing, and take a nap every afternoon, and take it easy.  You could sip a little wine with friends and family and have nice dinners.”

Remember, your business is supposed to make your life better, not worse.

To make a lot of money, do this –

To make a lot of money, you have to produce a lot of value for others.

You can produce some value for a LOT of people, or you can produce a LOT of value for a smaller number of people.

Things that are highly desired and uncommon are more valuable.

If people can get what you offer in a lot of places, they will not pay as much because it’s not as valuable.

What do people want? 

What do you provide?

What would they really want but haven’t seen (thought of) yet?

Can you provide that?