"You never came to see us"

I've been browsing an interesting book, Patrick Watson’s autobiography, This Hour has Seven Decades. Watson is a groundbreaking TV journalist (still best remembered for This Hour has Seven Days), who later became chair of the CBC.

But what I wanted to share with you is this particular gem, which relates to a key responsibility of management: walking around.

Here’s the scene: In the mid-1970s, a former president of the CBC, Alphonse Ouimet, was writing his memoirs. He asked to speak with Watson, then a freelance journalist, to sort out some of the issues around his controversial cancellation of Seven Days in 1966 - a move in which Watson was fired. Somewhat to Watson's surprise, the meeting went well. But after dinner and a bottle of Bordeaux, Watson realized he still harboured a grievance against Ouimet.

“I said ‘Al, you never came to see us, the producers. Or if you did it was always to tell us to pull our horns in, to not spend too much.’

‘You never came to the studios, you never came to pat us on the back and tell us what a great job we were doing. You were the father figure, you know, and we needed that from you.’”

Ouimet’s response? “He said he found that an astonishing thing for me to say. We must have known we were doing a good job and that management thought so, too, since we were given our budgets and our airtime, and we were all such confident and self-sufficient people; how could I say such nonsense about the father figure and needing to be patted on the back?”

Today, similar dramas play out every day in workplaces across Canada. Staff, even managers, desperate for attention and praise; and bosses unaware that that’s part of their job – perhaps the most important.

Does this happen in your workplace? If so, what will you do about it?

Cutting Costs in Your Business

I just found a decent article on Microsoft’s website called “How to Cut Costs Painlessly in Your Small Business.”

It offers lots of useful tips for managing transportation costs, cross-training employees, comparing service offerings, monitoring receivables, and marketing more efficiently

I also liked their grab bag of miscellaneous tips:

• Do you check your invoices against your purchase order to make sure you got everything you asked for — at the price you were quoted?

• Should employees who travel at company expense turn frequent flyer miles back to the company?

• Is your insurance coverage up to date, or is it based on equipment or vehicles you no longer have?

• Do you always purchase items new? Could you buy a year-old van or look into used office furniture next time you need some?

• Do you have more office space than you really need? If so, could you rent out part of your space to another business?

• Can you do a better job of organizing shipments to avoid costly overnight or next-day charges?

• Do you monitor energy usage to make sure you're not paying for lights and heat when no one is in the office?

Lots of small changes make a big difference. As they say, reducing your expenses by a dollar is worth 10 times that amount in sales.

See the full article here.

Growing in Three Dimensions

What did you do on your summer vacation?

Eric Andrew, a Vancouver-based private company services leader for PriceWaterhousecoopers, went kayaking off the west coast. And learned something new about business.

As Andrew reported last month in his blog, he soon noticed that the water looked different depending how he looked at it. On the surface, he could see kelp, logs and ripples. Changing focus, he could see the reflection of the coastline. And when he looked down into the water, he could see beds filled with sea cucumbers, starfish and marine plants.

He writes: “What was interesting was that I had to focus on each of these three dimensions quite deliberately. Otherwise I would miss one or more of them entirely. It was difficult—if not impossible—to see all of these at once..."

"This reminded me of several experiences I’ve had working with different businesses. Many businesses are very good at dealing with the one dimension that made them successful in the first place, which is most often the customers who are their source of revenue. However, many businesses fail to pay attention early enough to the other two important dimensions: the financial and operational health of their business (the “organization” dimension) and the management of their people within the business (the “people” dimension).”

Andrew's point is that as business becomes more competitive, companies need to focus much sooner on developing a financially sound operating structure - and on creating a culture to attract and retain good people. The trick is to work on all three dimensions at the same time.

“Just as it's difficult to see the surface of the water, the reflection on the water and what lies beneath the water at the same time, it’s also difficult to balance and focus on the different dimensions of clients, people and the organization simultaneously. To build a healthy and sustainable business, owners and managers must focus on all three dimensions and ensure that they have developed strategies that will allow them to succeed.”

For more of Eric’s blogposts (and to encourage him to keep writing), visit http://pwc.typepad.com/myviews

In praise of praise

For the last year, I have been coaching some of the principals in a manufacturing business just outside Toronto. Recently we engineered a change in sales management: a junior salesperson who seems to have his act together took over as sales director. (To make room, the incumbent is moving more into marketing.)

This was a bit of a gamble, intended to shake up the sales team. The new director is quite young and new to the business. I was confident he could do the job, but not certain.

Until yesterday, when I met with the new guy for a debrief. I found that he’s structuring more regular meetings with sales staff, setting new targets and devising new incentives. All based on instinct.

So I asked, “What do you think is the key difference in approach between you and your predecessor?”

His answer made me smile. “Where he would harangue and complain, I support them and praise them.”

I think he is going to work out just fine.