Balanced Scorecard Metrics

I enjoy batting around strategic ideas for the purpose of determining the best path forward.  I like the intellectual exercise of smart people taking an idea apart and examining it from all sides.  The rigor of probing, examining, pushing, testing, confronting – is one of the most exciting and interesting aspects of participating in business leadership.  This exercise is a necessary part of the process of strategic planning.

These discussions aren’t intended to be executive team building sessions.  Their purpose is refining ideas – plain and simple.  While they may provide work satisfaction for those who enjoy the fray, many find the discussions intimidating – the friction that comes from the intellectual wrestling can lead some people to eschew participation.

Strategic idea development conversations are not for the faint of heart.  At their best, they require the participants to be both smart and eloquent.  Ego is a trickier issue.  Participants must have ego enough to voice strong opinions while also not having so much ego as to be defensive of whatever their ideas might be.  The objective of strategic business discussions must be, “What’s the best potential solution to tackle this problem?”  Conversely, it should never be, “Why are you attacking my idea?  Back off!”

As ADVISA’s long time president, I know that at times I’ve been on both the right and wrong sides of those discussions.  I’d like to think that more often than not I’m not just protecting my way of doing things, though I believe that probably has happened.  As the company leader, I’ve got to try to manage myself to assure that the best idea is always in focus.  We all do. 

Being at least somewhat aware of my own failings in that regard, it’s fairly easy to spot defensiveness on the part of others in similar discussions.  The symptoms show when the participant typically stops searching for forward answers but digs in to defend whatever is their position.  Sometimes feelings are hurt.  Coaching folks through the situation and the desired outcome can be challenging, but the results should all be aimed at finding “The Best Idea” – for the discussion at hand and those going forward.

Ego is of real value in generating the ideas that lead to the solutions that drive balanced scorecard metrics.  But, it can also get in the way of delivering those results.  In order to participate, you should be smart, eloquent and have a strong ego that you can control.  

If you’d like help figuring out how to maximize the power of your ideas, give us a call.  We can help.

Our Dana Harrison just happily returned from her honeymoon with her new husband Peter.  Our Sally Jacobs will soon be betrothed to Dale Brosius who (we’re excited to say), she met as a client.  Heather Haas, our COO, will be having a baby boy in the next couple of weeks.  Next year Advisa will celebrate its’ 25^th anniversary. My wife Dana and I are about to leave on a vacation celebrating our 30^th anniversary.  Wow!  At Advisa, we’re surrounded by milestones.  I’d like to think that’s for a very good reason.

Each milestone is cause for both celebration and reflection.  

The celebration is natural.  Each event is special and a testament to an achievement of special personal and team effort.  That merits celebration for all involved.

The occasions also deserve reflection.  How did we get to this point in our lives together?  What did we do to assure this personal / team success?  What were the special / fun / interesting things that brought us to this point?  The reflection on past troubles and successes is a true joy of the present.

But, there’s a third thing that should be integrated into the reaching of every milestone.  The reflection on what brought us there should only be the prelude.  Every moment spent reflecting should be matched and in fact exceeded by the time spent envisioning how we can best advantage the future from whatever milestone we’ve achieved.  Virtually all aspects of life, like business, benefit from the application of strategic planning methods.  We’re very good at that here at Advisa.  That’s probably why we’ve got so many milestones occurring around us.

While we are good at many things, note that I’m not recommending personnel assessments to evaluate potential spouses.  Nor am I recommending implementing balanced scorecard metrics in childrearing.  I don’t think the psychology of selling impacts the success or the length of a marriage.  Thinking strategically, however, does help assure whatever future milestones you would like to have occur in all aspects of your life are more likely, in fact, to come to pass.  

I’ve blogged several times about the leadership transition from me to Heather at ADVISA – from the development of our strategic planning approach to our attempts to create balanced scorecard metrics for each other in the process. Today’s post is about a clear cultural shift that’s taking place as Heather takes on her greater leadership role in the organization.

My Style. My method of leadership gave subordinates significant leeway in operating style so long as results were achieved. I didn’t really care how folks interacted so long as they generally stuck to our core values and delivered their results. I tended to be tolerant of insults (generally, but not always, not intended to be such) and lack of acknowledgement and / or appreciation. Why not? Those behaviors didn’t / wouldn’t hurt my feelings. As a result, we’d have “Ground Hog Days” – situations that tended to recur among people because I was more comfortable tolerating the bad behavior than working to eradicate its causes.

Heather’s Style. As we work through specific issues regarding engaging employees throughout the business, Heather takes a different tack. She’s still very biased toward results. However, respect is now also required. People don’t have to like each other, but they do need to work together comfortably without feeling injured through their interactions. My style allowed injury and the hurt was ignored unless it got out of hand. Heather proactively addresses those areas where arrogance or unkindness seeps into communications to resolve the underlying issues and assure that people are able to work together going forward. Injured feelings and a lack of willingness to work together are no longer tolerated. Heather jumps on the underlying issues and works out solutions between the people involved. She lets them know that there will be no more “Ground Hog Days” involving behaviors that have created problems in the past.

This was a cultural shift that was needed.

ADVISA is becoming an organization where teamwork and the ability to draw on the many talents of our people are essential to our ability to be successful delivering results to clients. Collegiality and cooperativeness have become necessary to achieving our goals in that environment. Heather’s ascension has forced us to embark on this change. She’s instituting her own DNA into the business in a more forceful way. It’s good for us and it will also be good for you – our clients. You’ll be better able to draw on the resources of all of our talent as our talent becomes more effective at working together. Heather won’t tolerate anything less. No more “Ground Hog Days.”

Every day things happen in business.  Problems occur.  Issues are resolved.  Customers are satisfied.  Buyers are miffed.  Competitors act.  Vendors satisfy your needs.  Or, they don’t.  We respond.  We act.  We do our best.  

Here’s a question to ask yourself:  is your corporate attitude through the business day one of a commitment to capture opportunities, or is it simply to remain standing?  If it’s the latter, it’s the wrong answer.

Generally, opportunities are hidden.  They lurk deep in the crannies from which actions have grown.  Finding them requires serious thinking and digging about why the problems occurred in the first place.  What were the needs and drives that precipitated the call to action?  Will the confluence of factors that necessitated action come together again to yield a similar opportunity?  And, if it does, can your business present a compelling solution that flowers in the eyes of your customers?  Finding and capturing opportunities requires commitment and purpose to do so.

Businesses need to cultivate a cultural mind-set that values and encourages a commitment to capture and advantage opportunities as an operational paradigm.  That orientation drives growth, perpetuates employee engagement and serves as a foundation for organizational confidence.  If your culture is more focused on protecting against failure than looking for capturing opportunity, you need to change your strategic planning approach.  You need to create organizational alignment and commitment to capturing and advantaging opportunities.  

It’s not easy.  It’s a full time thinking, probing, digging job.  But, once you make the commitment, you’ll see the results pay-off in all of your balanced scorecard metrics.  It’s a business trait you should live and breathe.   

"In his 14 NBA seasons, he has won five championships and the hearts of countless Lakers fans with some of the most memorable postseason moments and heroics in franchise history.

He has done it with class and grace, but rarely gaudy statistics or individual accomplishments.

Kobe Bryant may be the largest figure in the Lakers' locker room, but there is no voice that carries more weight than Fisher's. He speaks softly at times, but his words always stick."

Last week, I talked about how we altered our mid-year review to have our employees have a larger role in driving the process. It’s gone so well (so far) I thought I’d share a little more.

Historically, our mid-year review went like this. Advisa management would write up a summary of the qualitative aspects of an employees’ performance and use that as a discussion point before going into the quantitative aspects of performance. There, we’d compare performance metrics with results and finally provide competency evaluations. It was a discussion, but it was very much management led and felt very directed and stilted – and ultimately, not very collaborative. 

This year we asked employees to talk with us about 5 questions:

1. What are you most proud of regarding your performance in the first half of the year?

2. What’s been challenging or frustrating?

3. Is there anything Advisa can do to better support you?

4. What are your goals and intentions for the second half of the year?

5. What skills or competencies are you focused on developing? How will you measure your success?

What we’ve discovered in changing the focus of the review from management directed to employee directed is that we’re having conversations about the same topics but in a spirit that is truly collaborative as opposed to directive. That made it easier to explore ideas, problems and most importantly, solutions as partners. The reviews wound up lasting just as long or longer than they had in the past (averaging about 1 ½ hours) but wound up being much more fulfilling for all parties.

Is it time to integrate this HR best practice into your organization too? If you’re interested in finding out more on how you can implement this kind of program combining strategic planning theory and balanced scorecard metrics into a review process, give me a call.

The review system we use within Advisa has been an evolving process.  We try to follow and update best hr practices and use what we learn both internally and with clients.  It only makes sense to practice what we preach.

Here are the highlights of our own evolution.

Shortly after hiring our first employee, I heard a terrific presentation about cascading Key Performance Requirements (KPR’s) to individual employees that were derived from implementing strategic planning.  I used what I’d learned to create balanced scorecard metrics for our people that dovetailed with our plans.  We began having year-end reviews to discuss progress against the measures and what the business could do to help employees accomplish them.  All the numbers were published and managed monthly, but we did a full fledged review at the end of the year.  The process assured that our people knew what they were supposed to be doing, how it was being measured and how what they were doing fit into our strategic planning framework. 

Several years later, I’d read “First Break all the Rules” by Buckingham and Coffman (if you haven’t read it, you should.  It’s a must read business book).  One of the 12 questions listed in the book that research had shown distinguished the best run companies was:  “In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress”.  It became apparent one review per year wasn’t enough.  We moved to two.  That assured that our people had regular discussions about their progress and how it helped accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization.

When Heather Haas (our COO) came back from an assignment with one of our clients who had adopted a competency model to augment their performance metrics, she had seen the benefits that were derived from the effort.  As a result, we investigated adding competency evaluations to our review process and concluded it would add value to our process.  We now evaluate 7 job-specific competencies as part of each employee’s review.  This addition allowed us to successfully evaluate some of the softer skills that allowed us to dig deeper into a person’s success (or struggles) than what we were able to achieve with KPR’s alone. 

Some of the employee development programs that Heather and Dana Harrison (our Advisa Hiring Manager) have been creating for clients have led us to another tweak of our process that’s beginning with this set of mid-year reviews.  We’ve found that hr best practices show that more commitment is garnered from employees when they help to drive the look and feel of their own goals.  Thus, we’re asking our employees to have a much more active role in providing input, doing their own goal-setting and encouraging management evaluations at mid-year reviews.  The process is just beginning, but so far, it seems to have opened up communications and done a better job of gaining personal commitment to where people are trying to go.

What’s the take-away for you?  Nothing’s ever perfect.  Always evaluate what you’re doing and keep your eyes and ears open to what others are doing and what the research says.  The opportunity to get even better than wherever your performance level is might be just around the corner. 

And, of course don’t be afraid to call us at Advisa if you think we can help you get even closer to perfection.  We probably can. 

My 5 year old daughter takes swimming lessons. I swam competitively, coached youth swimming and still love the sport. Thus, it was important to me that she learned to swim as early as possible – both to keep her safe around the water and to develop her confidence and physical fitness.

There is a lot involved in learning to swim. You must:

1.       Trust your instructor in order to overcome fear of the water

2.       Master a series of physical skills including floating, kicking, breathing, arm strokes, starts and turns.

3.       Perform combinations of those skills simultaneously using proper timing and form.

4.       Practice your strokes until the movements become automatic and you can focus on developing speed and strength.

Put those 4 things in any other order and it doesn’t work. You can’t learn to relax and float face down in the water until you overcome your fear of drowning. Similarly, you cannot improve speed and strength if you don’t have the right timing and proper form. And so on. The progression in learning to swim can’t be re-ordered. Each skill builds on the previous one.  Interestingly, the phrase “sink or swim” doesn’t paint a realistic picture of the progression that must occur to go from unable to keep one’s head above water to real swimming. You can’t just flip a switch and “be a swimmer.”

Similarly, you can’t just flip a switch and become a high performing organization.  You can certainly survive with a successful product or service that meets a market demand, but creating an environment where success is predictable and sustainable is an entirely different process.

The good news is that if you find yourself in a desperate “sink or swim” mode, this blog post will serve as a life preserver of tips and recommendations for making real progress toward organizational success.

·         Successful Strategic Planning – While there are a variety of strategic planning methods out there, the bottom line is that every successful organization has a sense of where it’s headed into the future and why. This vision guides future action and serves as a touchstone for organizational alignment.   Clearly articulating where you’re headed, where you’re not and getting people aligned behind that vision is what makes a strategic plan “successful.”

·         The Importance of Motivation – People do the work. Motivated people do better work. Better work leads to customer loyalty which is a sustainable competitive advantage in any economy. Getting the right people in the right roles and training managers to create an effective, engaging work environment is paramount to long term success. The importance of motivation is that it directly impacts the bottom line. High performing organizations are made up of employees who trust their supervisors, have the resources to do their best work and are encouraged to grow and develop. 

·         Balanced Scorecard Metrics – What gets measured gets done. Identify performance metrics and/or success indicators at the business, department and individual level. When individuals know what targets they need to hit, they perform better. When managers know what targets their team needs to hit, they manage better. When organizations know what targets they need to hit to achieve their goals, they are more profitable. The best companies define success in measurable terms and then assign clear accountabilities and deadlines. This and only this can create the organizational alignment that’s essential to thrive long-term.

Click here to learn even more about how to progress from a “sink or swim” reality to a confident, high performing organization.

Back in early March I blogged about the possibility that the economic spring was here.  As of now, I firmly believe it is – at least for us.  But, for us, it’s more than economic spring.  While the economy seems to be turning, a big part of our success is the result of the solid performance of two of our more recently minted consultants – Aszure Grimes and Chris Pauwels.  We wouldn’t be doing as well as we’re doing if their performance wasn’t as strong as it is.  They’ve become a big part of our organization’s economic recovery and my personal work satisfaction.

Jay Hawreluk, John Ranalletta, and Todd Gross have alternated winning our MVP performance award each of the last three years.  Once again, they are each ranked at or near the top in many of our performance measures.  What’s new this year is that for the first time Aszure and Chris have risen to several of the top two slots in our most important dashboard items alongside our most senior folks.  It’s not that our senior consultants are losing their touch.  They’re all having good years.  It’s that our more recent additions are performing at the levels of our best folks – and that’s very exciting news for all of us at Advisa.

If you’ve not met her, Aszure came up through our Advisa Hiring business in a sales role.  After learning the nuts and bolts of our PI® business from that vantage point, she got promoted a little over a year ago into a consultant role.  She’s smart, charismatic, and has gone through all of our consulting and sales process training with flying colors.  Her clients have begun to see the value she brings to them and her balanced scorecard metrics have demonstrated exactly that.

Chris came from a career in manufacturing leadership and started with us on our consultant track from the beginning.  He had to learn selling, consulting, Predictive Index® and all the rest of our services from scratch – a lot to learn.  Working out of west Michigan, he’s also been faced with a very tough economic climate.  Since January he’s been able to improve his sales skills and consulting skills to either be at the head of our pack or very near it in new business development every month. 

Based on what our clients are saying, I believe the economic spring is either here or very close.  Based on the stellar work of Aszure and Chris, I think our economic spring is definitely here.    

While ADVISA was founded in 1986, we operated out of virtual offices (a 2^nd floor room at our house in Louisville and another in our basement in Carmel) until 1999.  At that point, we moved into our first office space.  We bought, renovated and moved into our current building on Range Line Road in Carmel in 2001.

Since moving out of the house and into an office, I wanted to use the cleaning of the office as a mechanism to teach life lessons first to my own kids and then to the children of people who worked for us (when our kids weren’t available).  In 1999, Jacob (our eldest) was 17, Brandon was 15 and Reid was 11.  Jacob and Brandon were given the “opportunity” to vacuum, clean toilets, etc. every weekend at the office for a fair wage.  They took it.  They wanted the money.  They became the VPSE (Vice President of Sanitary Engineering) at ADVISA.

Dana, my wife, would work with them the first few times they did the job showing them what to do and how.  After a while, she’d drop them off and agree to a pick up time.  When she came back, Dana would do her version of a white-glove inspection.  The boys dreaded it as they knew she’d find something that they’d have to do over.  But they eventually got it right. 

Gradually, the job transitioned from one son to the next.  They had other jobs or school activities at the same time, but this one was there to help them learn the connections between work and pay and the impact having money could have on fun.  They learned that even menial jobs are connected to a bigger picture and do indeed have importance.  While their role didn’t have balanced scorecard metrics per se, they were held accountable to very specific standards.  Dana made sure of that.

One of the more comic stories occurred when Reid was asked to join a friend on a long weekend visit to his lake house.  The mom came over on their return to tell us about the trip.  When the large family (they had four kids, Reid, another guest and two dogs) pulled in, they’d forgotten relatives had “borrowed” the house since they’d last been there.  Opening the door, they discovered it was left a mess.  The mom freaked and said, “OK.  Before we have any fun around here, everybody, and I MEAN EVERYBODY, is going to work to clean up this pigsty.”  She said, “You won’t believe what Reid said and did.”  We looked at her dumbfounded.  She continued.  “Reid says to me, ‘Where’s your bathroom stuff, I’ll start cleaning the bathrooms.’  And the kid just started working.  I couldn’t believe it.  Everyone else was standing around waiting for me to tell them what to do.”  Dana and I believed it, because that was Reid’s day job.  He was good.

Our latest VPSE to take the baton is our Marketing Coordinator Beth Claflin’s son Connor.  He’s been doing the job for a couple of years and really has done terrific work.  He’ll graduate from high school next year and we’ll have to look for his replacement.  We’ll miss him. 

With his departure looming, the question was raised as to whether we should look at moving to a professional service to clean the office.  How would we know if we’d get someone as good as Connor moving into the role next?

One of the cool things about owning a business is you do, oftentimes, get to be the “decider”.  The answer was easy.  Our VPSE job is here for the kids of the business who are willing to learn the value of work and make some nice money.  If the kid’s work is less than what’s desired, it’s our role to hold them accountable.  If they still don’t get it right, we’ll eventually have to have a talk with the kid (and probably the parent employee too) saying, “You’re not doing well enough to continue.”  We’ve come close to that conversation a couple of times (generally with our own kids), but they got the message before the trigger on their employment had to be pulled.  It’s worked out.

It’s nice getting to know our employees’ kids and giving them an opportunity to have the responsibility of a job at an early age.  With Heather pregnant with her 3^rd due in September, we’ve got a line of potential VPSE’s covering our employee recruiting efforts until sometime in 2028.  The job may not provide work satisfaction for the kids at the time they’re actually cleaning the toilets, but it teaches them valuable life lessons.  And that sure provides work satisfaction for me.

In the last several months, I’ve written a couple of posts about our newest consultant, BJ McKay.  Here’s another one.

BJ started with us last November and has been in full throttle learning mode ever since. He went through PI® boot camp and did his first Predictive Index Management Workshop™ last month to rave reviews. He’s gone through all of our sales process training and sales training coaching efforts (though, truthfully, he didn’t need a whole lot of either).  He’s learned our strategic planning methods and how we go about implementing balanced scorecard metrics.  And in between, he’s been selling.  And, since the workshop, selling full time.

Today he closed his first deal at Advisa.  Exciting!

Trying to build a consulting practice from the beginning is hard work.  It’s frustrating.  There are far more people who don’t want to talk with you than those that do.  No matter how successful your previous career, the early stages of consulting can wear on a person.  You wonder, “Am I ever going to get my first sale?”  “Am I really cut out to do this kind of work?”  “Are people really going to want to buy my advice?”  I know I did.

BJ is such a self-motivated person there were only a couple of times where he let on the time without a deal was getting to him – and then, there was only a hint.  Heather and I served as in-house cheerleaders – letting him know every step of the way that we knew he was going to not only get his first deal, but become a superstar.

Today the corner was turned.  The prospect was one he introduced himself to.  It was one he found the problems we were going to address.  It was one he developed the relationship with and has begun to service.  He earned the business.  And when the client signed the paperwork, it was his deal.

There is no bigger happier better-earned smile than the one that comes to someone who gets a deal as a result of the work they know they’ve done.  BJ wore that smile all over his face as he walked into the office after his morning appointment.  I shook his hand and knew that was the first of many more to follow.  Nothing works at engaging employees better than capitalizing on a self-made opportunity.

BJ did it and he’s got that smile of satisfaction.  Ah, the thrill of the deal!

It is the beginning of the baseball season, but this isn’t a take-off on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.  It’s a story about a job search and what are decidedly not HR best practices.

Here’s what happened. 

A friend of mine (let’s call him Brent) asked for some advice.  He’s a mid-level manager within a non-profit with a decidedly “Collegial” culture (that we’ll call NP).  On the one hand, the atmosphere at NP is very open and friendly.  Nothing can be said negatively to anyone about anything – least of all performance – in the carrying out of responsibilities.  If it is, the group disdain of peer pressure is strongly felt.  If an employee can stomach those few people who receive paychecks at NP for little or no effort or output, the environment can be a warm, vibrant community of people who (generally) care.  Needless to say, the lack of performance management or some kind of balanced scorecard metrics become a source of frustration for those concerned about the overall quality of work delivered.  They either accept the culture or they leave.  Brent has chosen to stay.

He described his specific dilemma over the phone.  The director of NP is looking for an assistant manager for a person working underneath Brent.  Because the director wants to interview the most talented people for the job, he’s describing the job to applicants as “Co-manager” to draw their interest.  The reality of the position is that it is an Assistant Manager and that will likely be revealed to the applicants toward the end of the first interview or (potentially) on the second.  Brent raised this disparity to the director.  He dismissed it as inconsequential; something they’d work through.  But, Brent knew the candidates would view it as anything but inconsequential.  He wanted to know what if anything he could do.

I suggested Brent lay out for the director two scenarios.  First, I suggested, just tell him how you would respond to the interview.  Let him know that once you discovered the reality of what you were interviewing for, you’d be polite and understanding, but that you would not be able to trust the organization for deceiving you about the job you were interviewing for and would have a hard time accepting it, even if it was what you were looking for.

Then I suggested Brent advance the name of an NP colleague who is both known for strong assertiveness and their talents at doing their job.  I suggested Brent ask the director, given what they know of the colleague, how that person would respond to the deception and what the implication of the deception would do to influence their job choice.  Because the director is decidedly uncomfortable with conflict (as you might guess by reading this), I also suggested Brent raise the question of the likelihood of confrontation with the assertive employee in this scenario.

It’s too soon to know if Brent’s approach will change the direction of NP’s search.  There are several lessons you might learn from the interaction, however.

1.    Honesty is always the best policy.  Deception today yields future trouble tomorrow.  A recruiting strategy that is built on lies won’t be of much help in building an organization.
2.  Employee engagement is reduced where nice trumps performance or truth.  Some kind of balance between results, truth and positive interactions is necessary for work satisfaction to thrive – even in collegial environments. 
3. Even in situations where leadership clearly doesn’t function very well, it makes sense to try to do your best to proactively address actions destined to fail.  Even if you don’t succeed, you have the knowledge that you did your best – and that should at the least make you feel good about your efforts.

If you’re in need of sound business or non-profit advice, please contact me at bwilson@advisausa.com. 

Performance appraisals are a key part of how to supervise people.  

Obviously you are going to evaluate performance based on results achieved, as well as on the way these results were achieved. You have established a Balanced Scorecard per individual with a direct view to the overall strategy. And sure you have thought long and hard about how to match bonus and salary adjustment to performance. Sounds obvious, but you would be surprised to see how many people do a poor job at this.

Some issues:

• Don’t reward obedience in leadership positions. Yes-people in leadership positions are the biggest threat to your business!
• Don’t reward your personal likes and dislikes about people. People are unique. Rewarding your personal likes only displays your inability to bridge the personality gap!
• Don’t get distracted when it is time to value success and contribution. Show your appreciation (and dissatisfaction).
• Don’t let an official appraisal be a surprise. No need to use the occasion to bring up old cows, accuse or point to failures. By the time the actual reporting needs to be done, both you and the appraised should know what the deal is. Use the opportunity to talk about the future. It should be a motivating experience.
• Don’t put your head in the sand. Not all your people are stars. Force yourself to do a ranking. Know which are your most valuable players, and have the guts to point them out. And do justice to them by dealing with the poor players. 

No need to be ruthless when looking at your people. But there is a need to follow a comprehensive annual process, where you take some time away and involve some outside help, to review your team. Note who has potential to do better, and put a development plan together for them. Look after your bright stars and make sure you keep them engaged! Create opportunities for them to shine. Use their talents!

It always surprises me how we find it natural and right that people join a sports team based on ability and performance. We all agree not everyone can join the Red Wings. We boo the poor performers and turn the stars into millionaires. But we don’t have the same determination when it comes to the team that decides the livelihood of our business…

To create a group of engaged employees, the importance of motivation is key. And a poor execution of performance appraisals is demotivating to your star employees!

We had our worst year in our 23-year history in 2009.  We were down 18%.  It may surprise you, but we felt pretty good about that.  It seems we outperformed most of our peers and we’ve prepared ourselves to blossom when the economic spring arrives.

Our organizational planning process allowed us to survive the long economic winter reasonably well – we both made a little money and used the downturn and our recruiting strategy to add two very talented people to our team (Dana Harrison and BJ McKay).  Going into this year, our strategic planning approach was to work hard and hope for a flat year – likely, plus or minus 7%. That was where we assumed the last of the winter would leave us.  If the winter ever left us.

Maybe the season is starting to change.  Last month, we performed very well on, what is for us, a key balanced scorecard metric – Net New Business (NNB).  Obviously not a GAAP approved measure.  NNB is simply the difference between the revenue we add and what is cancelled in our 90-day forecast.  In February, our number came close to the levels of the hot times prior to the deep economic cold spell that has engulfed most businesses recently.  We hadn’t seen that for a while.  And March is tracking similarly.

In watching our clients, we see some businesses that are continuing to struggle on what is, for them, a frozen landscape.  But, we also see businesses that are starting to bud – to push optimistically toward the sun.  They’re recognizing that it’s time to invest in those things that we can bring to them:  implementing organizational planning programs, improving their sales performance and instituting HR best practices.  Overall, they're wanting what we deliver:  the organizational confidence that yields sustainable results.

Like the daffodil buds bursting from the ground outside my office window, I think the economic spring may be here.  It’s been a long, cold winter; I’m ready to once again see and smell the flowers.  I’m excited.

Getting buy-in may not involve spending money but not getting it can be very expensive.

Creating Organizational Alignment is accomplished by creating line of sight, buy-in, and activities that are in sync from the very top of the organization to the lowest person on the lowest rung of the ladder.  Organization alignment is not about just getting the executive team on the same page.  It is about linking all components of your business.  This should begin with the process of strategic planning, organizational design structure, creating balanced scorecard metrics, and continue through all aspects down to the develop of individual performance metrics.   

Do you have a solid measurement and communication system to insure the people doing the work are actually doing the things that will help you achieve your vision for the organization?  Are your metrics clearly linked to your vision and do the people understand how their efforts help the organization achieve its' goals?  Too frequently people at lower levels of the organization do not have that line of sight between their work and the company objectives.  They hear the state of the union speeches and have read the mission and vision but feel like they do not effect those things.  They see those as management things and they just need to do what they are told.  

Some of the most successful employee motivation techniques involve helping employees understand how they contribute and make a difference in the direction of the organization.  In the days of staff reductions and increased expectations, each employee is more critical.  Let your people know their importance to the goals of the organization and help them clearly see how they personally effect it.  


"People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision."

- John C. Maxwell

On the morning news program they had a segment on shaving performance.  Contrary to what the ads would have us believe the "experts" on this segment cited that the best performance still comes from a straight razor.  I am old enough that I started shaving with a single bladed razor.  I missed the era of the straight razor.  I did move up to a twin blade and was late in migration but finally moved to my current choice of a three bladed razor.  Now they have five bladed razors and razors that vibrate as you shave.  I just know I am going to wake up someday in the near future and see some smooth faced guy advertising a fourteen bladed razor.  

As the program talked about the performance of the one single blade I could not help myself but to reflect back on my firm belief that I have always gotten the best use and performance out of Ockham’s Razor.  Is what has happened in the world of razors an example of what has happened in the world of business?  



Pavlov taught us that too many bells ringing only serves to confuse the dog.  As leaders we will always benefit from good, useable information.  In the age of information what we have to be cautious of is the perplexity of information overload and the confusion of useless information.  Ockham’s Razor is a concept that in trying to understand something, getting unnecessary information out of the way is the fastest way to the truth or to the best explanation.   



As the world gets more complicated, 


communications must become more simple.

-Maurcie Saatchi

As managers we tend to confuse our people with the lack of organization alignment.  We have too many initiatives, activities, tasks, projects, etc., going on simultaneously without a clearly communicated common purpose or vision.   One of the keystones of our organizational development theory is to insure the business has, in the words of Jim Collins, a good hedgehog concept and that the organizational planning and communications are focused on that concept.  This should include a organizational design structure and implementing a balanced scorecard that creates line of site between activities and vision for each person in the organization and serves to eliminate confusion and conflicting responsibilities.  By focusing on what is truly important and removing the unnecessary noise we empower the people to help us achieve our common goals. 


Everything should be made as simple as possible, 

but no simpler.

- Albert Einstein