Creating a Confident Organization

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.

I met with a long-term client this week to discuss the potential of our selling one of their services.  Their program dovetails nicely with our existing offerings while offering our client potential access to a new market.  We bring market and sales expertise into the equation.  The client brings product knowledge expertise.  It could be a very nice fit for everyone – including our clients – if it all comes to pass.  Time will tell.

When we look at potential product / service line additions, we want to make sure they are a fit with who ADVISA is on all fronts.  Those being:

1.   Our Mission.  Will the addition, “Profitably provide client companies and management teams with the knowledge and power to optimize their talent and achieve their potential”?

2.   Our Byline.   Will the product / service help our clients “Maximize Results Through People”?

3.   Our Plan.  Will the addition fit into the parameters of our strategic planning framework?  Does it help take us to where we want to be in the next five years?

4.   Our Team.  Will the product / service utilize the strengths of our current talent?  Will it have the opportunity to increase work satisfaction and help create more engaged employees internally?

5.   Our Finances.  Will the addition have the potential to positively impact both revenues and profits?  Can it be a platform for future growth?

6.   Our Organizational Design Structure.  Will the product / service fit into our current organizational model – where consultants are responsible for client service and subject matter experts are responsible for service delivery?

In this case, our first inclination is that everything seems to fit.  We’ll start the evaluation process for real in the next several weeks and hope to have a beta test or two by the end of the year.  I’ll look forward to letting you know our progress on evaluating this potential venture.  

If you'd like to add this kind of rigor to your new venture initiatives, 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 been travelling over the last couple of weeks to see clients with BJ McKay, our most recently minted consultant. The calls have had multiple purposes. In all cases they were an effort to connect BJ with clients he was going to service. In some cases, it was an effort to reacquaint myself with old friends and contacts. And again in all cases, we were there to simply provide customer service – to see how and if we could help our client businesses perform better. 

The sessions have been really valuable – for our clients and me.

I’ve gotten to watch clients respond to BJ’s natural enthusiasm paired with his solid knowledge of how to apply our products and services. He brought value talking to clients about our Selling Skills Assessment Tool™ and its’ value in measuring Sales Skills. Every one of our meetings had some discussion around Predictive Index® and how the Predictive Index Management Workshop™ applies to applicant screening, employee productivity and work satisfaction. It was fun sitting back watching BJ field a range of tough PI® questions comfortably and correctly. He even was given opportunities to discuss applying the principles of organizational alignment, successful strategic planning and executive coaching to various client problems.

The visits were all successful because clients saw us as actively engaged in helping to solve their problems. That was natural - because that is what we were there to do.

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.”

I trained my 3^rd PI class in the last two years this past week. I had planned on auditing a day of the training until the day before the training began – when our consultant called to say he had a death in the family and wouldn't be able to lead the class. My schedule was clean and I said I’d be happy to pinch hit. I could cover.

A couple months ago we had a similar scenario when another consultant came down with laryngitis the day before he was to begin his class. Frantic calls and a few re-scheduled appointments and our client was taken care of – with the voice-less consultant in back of the class whispering encouragement to his able voiced teammate.

The Values Statement we crafted in our first strategic planning retreat many years ago states among other things, “We will operate as a team - wherever possible helping each other.” While there are times we don’t do as well as we should, it is nice to see that the majority of time, we do pretty well. 

It was also fun to deliver the Predictive Index Management Workshop™ again to a group of working managers. Watching the light bulbs go off in the audience as they saw how they can influence work satisfaction, employee engagement and staff motivation simply by following the leadership training and development that the workshop provides was very rewarding.

Working at Advisa is really a cool way to earn a living - even doing it as President (for a little while longer). 

We moved into our offices on Range Line Road in Carmel in October of 2001. If you’ve not visited, our offices are in a home that was built in 1899 (there’s a picture on the wall that was taken of the house and the family living there in 1920). The house had been the 210 Restaurant for about 8 years prior to our purchase, redesign and renovation. Those of us who work here all like the warmth and homey feel it provides. It feels like a home away from home – which was the intent from the beginning.

Of our current team of 15 people, 4 of us reside here on business days more or less permanently, 3 others do most of their work here and another 3 are regular visitors. Our remote consultants visit irregularly. Additionally, we hold our local Predictive Index Management Workshops™ here in our training room. We’ll also host occasional client meetings and strategic planning sessions. In our nine years, we’ve gotten very good use of the facility. And, as you might expect, there are signs that some work needs to be done – both to spruce things up physically and to provide general technology upgrades for our training facility.

I don’t think work satisfaction or staff motivation have been impaired by the natural wear that’s taken place. It’s just time for a sprucing up. And that’s what we’re doing.

All week carpenters have been banging, measuring, drilling, moving. Painters have been scraping, rubbing, painting. Dust and the smell of paint waft through the air. Strange faces come and go – in and out. We’re under construction.

But, it won’t be long before the transition is complete. The training room will have new video, board and sound capabilities. The exterior and interior will both have a bright, shiny glow. Our space will be the “new, improved” Advisa home. 

Will the sprucing up impact employee engagement or work on improving employee morale? Probably not. But, we will look a lot fresher. And I think we’ll all be pleased with the improvements. That can't hurt work satisfaction, can it?

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by. It may not all be complete until mid-September, but we'd love for you to visit. I hope we’ll feel like home to you too.

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.   

I don’t believe that there’s anything more talked about in business and leadership circles today than “Talent Management”.  It's a part of family business planning.  It's a topic of every strategic planning workshop in both large companies and small.  That all makes perfect sense.  Having better talent than your competition in the right jobs is the first part of the better results equation.  The second part is managing it – getting the better people you’ve got to be engaged in their work.  The key to beating your competition is really simple: 

Better Talent + Engaged Employees = Better Results

Simple to say, but it can be hard to execute.  That’s why there’s so much talk about and around the subject.

One of the first, easiest solutions to address the problem is Predictive Index®.  It allows you to assess the personalities of both people and jobs so you can place the talent you need in each of the jobs you have. 

Does the job require bold steps, assertiveness and a call to action?  Does the person have those traits? PI® lets you know because it allows you to measure both people and jobs and compare the two. 

Additionally, because it measures a person’s drives, PI also lets you know what it takes to satisfy a person’s needs – in short, it lets you know how to keep your jobs filled with engaged employees.

Effective talent management begins with finding better people.  It is sustained by managing them effectively.  PI can help you do both.  So can we.  Call me.  Or read my whitepaper.  You’ll get better results.
 

We just added “Special Projects Consultant” to the “Advisa Hiring Manager” title held by our Dana Harrison. That makes sense for us and our clients because Dana both enjoys and is good at delivering results on “Special Projects”. This work involves evaluating a specific problem within a client; putting forth a solution that they find satisfactory; and finally implementing that solution to the clients’ satisfaction.

Recently, she's partnered with our consultants on “Special Projects” which have included:

· Diagnosing a national organizations’ hiring processes and putting HR best practices into place

· Analyzing and strengthening the employee recruiting process of a multi-national organization and training the revised effort to multiple locations around the world

· Providing coaching for better self-understanding to a group of sales managers to yield stronger teamwork, communication and better performance

· Facilitating the development of a strategic planning approach for the HR function within an organization

Dana has a gift few others have. She can analyze a situation; combine her experience with research and common sense to conceive a plan; and then discuss and finalize it in partnership with the client. Once the plan is agreed to, she then works like crazy to implement it to assure the desired result is accomplished. Our consultant’s know that when Dana is given a “Special Project”, their clients will be happy with the result. And that’s good for everyone.

If you have a “Special Project” – a business or personnel problem you just don’t know how to solve, give us a call. It may be beyond our capabilities (and if it is, we’ll let you know). But there’s also a real good chance that our team's involvement could yield the results you desire.

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 wife and I are returning from a wonderful weeklong vacation at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC.  Spoleto is an arts festival focusing on music, theatre and dance.  And if you’ve never been to Charleston, it’s a gorgeous town with dozens of art galleries and wonderful restaurants allowing one to indulge ones senses in overall lusciousness.  It’s a great town to walk around in and Spoleto is a great reason to visit.

At the festival, we attend 2-4 events a day and the majority of them are musically based.  This year they ranged from the sublime (a wonderful performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet in E Flat Major Opus 20) to the ridiculous (a piece “composed” for the festival played by world-class musicians with a lovely soprano singing the line, “Dung!  Dung!  Dung!”  Eww.).  In spite of the occasional goofiness of new work, we enjoy our visits.

Every January, I wait for the day that tickets go on sale so I can get first crack at front row seats for each of the performances.  Why?  The music is only half of why we’re there – I also love to watch the performers do their thing – whatever that particular thing is.  And the range of what “performing” is goes from one end of the spectrum to the other.

On the emoting end of the spectrum, the chamber series presented Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor played by Livia Sohn (violin), Barry Schiffman (viola), Alisa Weilerstein (cello) and Inon Barnatan (piano).  Each of them is an outstanding soloist with some measure of acclaim with Weilerstein likely leading the pack.  At only 28, she’s gotten rave revues as a soloist around the world.  She is performer as emoter – showing rapture one minute and seemingly possessed by demons the next.  I can’t really evaluate the strength of her talent, but she sure is fun to watch.  Barnatan, a frequent partner of hers, is equally evocative.  He sways and smiles; grimaces and explodes as he pounds or caresses the keys.  Sohn matches them both in emotion while Schiffman goes between a sweet pixie grin to fervid determination.  The four demonstrated the full gamut of emotions as the last movement of Brahms’ gypsy dance’s built in power and enthusiasm to a rousing crescendo.  At the conclusion, the audience erupted into a standing ovation.  I can’t evaluate the quartet’s technical capabilities, but this was a splendid performance – the greatest reason to see live music.

At the other end of the performance spectrum was a modern percussion piece delivered by three young professionals from the Spoleto Orchestra.  These are talented young people who range from mid-college age to budding professionals who have yet to catch a permanent gig with an orchestra. They audition for Spoleto and wind up playing a mix of ballet, opera and symphony as well as special programs such as this at the festival.  The better players will occasionally be featured as soloists and they are all obviously talented musicians.

If you’ve never been to a symphony orchestra performance, the percussion players are as far from the front of the stage as you get – they’re not used to being seen.  Playing a percussion only piece where they were the sole musicians on the stage was obviously something this trio wasn’t accustomed to and they seemed less than comfortable.  The impression left was they were channeling the rhythm and coolness of Woody Allen at the height of his nebbishness.  I didn’t care for the music, but probably would have found it more interesting had it been accompanied by “performance”.

I don’t think music schools or teachers spend a whole lot of time getting their students to channel their inner emotion or utilize personality assessments to try to get them to better understand themselves in the process.  Many musicians might gain as much work satisfaction just playing their instruments and making music as opposed to emoting their way through a piece.  As an audience member, I’d rather performers channel their inner Alisa Weilerstein than their inner Woody Allen.  It makes the entertainment much more entertaining when the musicians are also performers.  Spoleto makes me realize how personality assessments and personal coaching could be valuable outside of our usual realm of operation.  My line’s not ringing presently, but I’d be glad to offer my services.  I don't know that I'd influence an orchestra's work satisfaction or recruiting strategy, but I'd sure like the part about listening to the music - especially when "performed" well.

I love my job, but that doesn’t mean I don’t look forward to vacation.  I do.  (see “Ah Vacation!”).

It wasn’t long after starting the business that I began looking forward to the day when it was well enough established for the family to take a vacation.  Within the first year of putting out the shingle, our inaugural vacation was planned – an early visit to Disney World with the kids.  In spite of all the excitement of just getting the business going, I really looked forward to that time off.  My personal work satisfaction level couldn’t have been higher with what I was doing, but having vacation on the horizon was something I looked forward to.

As you read this, I’ll be on a week’s vacation in Charleston – one of Dana’s and my favorite cities.  We’ll dine at our favorite restaurants, visit the numerous art galleries and attend a number of the Spoleto arts festival events.  We’ll just glory in the time where neither of us are responsible for the daily activities that we categorize as “work” – no matter how much fun they can be or how much we feel like engaged employees doing them.  Regularly getting away from home and shucking off the routines, pressures and encumbrances of workaday life provides the strength to enjoy it more upon return.   

Vacation, like an exercise routine, is a paradox. You look forward to them both every day.  You feel good in the moment you're partaking in them.  When they're done, you're stronger for the effort and are left more energized for your work.  When you neglect to partake in either, you feel drained.  If you neglect either for too long, it becomes hard, sometimes near impossible, to sustain work satisfaction.  Thus, the paradox; in order to get more work done and maximize your own employee productivity, you need to work less – to make time for those things - vacation and exercise - that allow you to work more.  Strange, but true.

Vacation is critical to employee productivity.  Especially mine.  

Please be sure you and your people take the time to take your vacation.  Likely, it's just as critical for you.

I’ve been working with client CEO’s utilizing PI® for almost 25 years.  Translating, that means I’ve met with over 200 client company presidents talking about their business futures in a paid consulting role and watched those futures unfurl over time.  One of the saddest things I’ve seen, and I’ve seen it several times, is where the company president / owner wakes up one day and realizes his children can't or don't have an interest in leading the business.  As a result, soon thereafter he decides to sell his business and give the kids the money rather than the reins.

The problem in these cases isn’t that the kids might not be the right ones to take the business forward.  The problem is that, in the aftermath, the CEO frequently watches what he spent a lifetime building being deconstructed before his eyes.  The president got the money for his family in the transaction, but his other child (the business), the one he spent much of his life building, is dismembered piece by piece with the buildings frequently abandoned, much of the staff terminated and all but the memories taken to the new headquarters in a different city.  What was intended to be a monetary transaction for the future of the family became instead a long running emotional drain on the psyche of the former leader.

Unfortunately, companies get to the uncomfortable place outlined above because they don’t have a sound strategic planning approach to guide their future.  The act of planning for the future mandates looking realistically at succession and family business planning.  How can a company map out a 5-year future without a hard look at who will be leading it in 5-years?  And if the people in leadership will be in their 60’s 5-years hence, the leadership group has to take a realistic look at what could happen and how to assure that the business is in a position to thrive regardless of the circumstances.  That’s hard, but necessary.  I remember saying to the near 70 president of a company several years ago during their first strategic planning workshop, “You say you don’t need a successor.  You do realize that you are, at some point, going to die, don’t you?  Do you want your business to survive you?”  He answered, “Yes.”  I responded, “Then you need to put someone in place who can make sure the business survives regardless of what happens to you.  And you need to start that process now!”  The scene was very uncomfortable, but very necessary.

Waking up realizing, “I’m into my sixties and the kids aren’t right or don't want to take over so I think I should sell” isn’t where a leader wants to be.  Selling may yield the results desired.  Unfortunately, I’ve seen it do exactly the opposite of what was intended.  Rather than an action to protect the family, it can be perceived by the former leader as an action that has sold the business family out.  And that can lead to more regret than satisfaction.  If you’re in that boat, think about implementing strategic planning.  And if you’re thinking about implementing strategic planning, think about Advisa.  We're good at it.  Give me a call and we can have a chat.

Last Saturday night the band “The Fourth Wall” debuted in a small restaurant / pub in Nashville - four guys who'd been together a couple of weeks who were just looking to have some fun and play some music.  My wife and I and our two eldest sons were there for the performance.  Brandon, our middle son, is the leader and front man for the band.

What got us here is an interesting story.  Brandon moved to Nashville initially because he had a job opportunity that covered two of his secondary areas of interest – theatre and teaching.  Jacob, his older brother, was already employed at the private school doing the hiring and suggested Brandon interview for a part time job in technical theatre.  Brandon liked the idea because if he got the job, he thought he could pursue his primary interest (at the time) – becoming a rock star.  He thought the best track for that would be the open Mic circuit - and Nashville would be an ideal place to start (Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe is one he's played at and perhaps the most famous of them all).  Three years have passed and Brandon’s not only teaching full-time but become head of the arts' department of the school he was brought into.  He’s really enjoying the teaching.  And recently, he started his own open Mic to see where his music would lead.

Personnel selection for “The Fourth Wall” wasn’t what you’d call “best hr practice” or a part of a larger "recruiting strategy".  People who showed up for the open Mic on Wednesday would do their own songs individually and jam together later.  Those that got along, had some talent and were willing to practice a few times for the Saturday Night band gig were in.   Those that failed on any of the qualifications were out.  Brandon sang and played guitar, Neato played the keyboards, Todd drums and George bass.  They’d all had some professional (money making) musical experience, but none had hit the big time.  They got along well enough and figured their joy of music would carry them.

At about 8:15 Saturday night everyone was ready and the music commenced.  I’ve heard many iterations of Brandon’s music, but this was the best I’d heard – a professional band really does make a difference.  The fact that they were having a great time helped too.  The four men were united by the joy of making music together – work satisfaction in action.  The crowd was pleased and the band took both energy and tips from them gratefully.

Time will tell if “The Fourth Wall” lives on or not.  If nothing else, it was a Saturday night of fun and good music.  That's all the band and crowd wanted - a one night gig and good times. 

I'm not sure Brandon or the band are looking to review their personnel selection or strategic planning systems.  They're not thinking about hiring strategy or the future of the band all that much.  Maybe they'll play again, maybe not.  They're not looking to make a living out of their efforts or turn their band into a business.  They're just having fun and if and when the fun stops, so will they.  It's a different approach than I'd suggest for a business, but for them, for now, why not?

Once or if the band starts thinking about their tomorrow's, Bran and I will probably have a chat. At that point, they may need to be a tad more rigorous in their approach to many of the fundamentals what could become their business - and in that, I could help.  But perhaps, if or when it becomes a business, it will cease to be a fun Saturday night.  That may not be the direction things take.  We'll see what happens...

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.    

Heather Haas was put in place to succeed me as the President of Advisa about two years ago.  She’s currently COO and will take over the role of CEO and President in January of 2012.  I asked her to succeed me because she’s smart, works hard, thinks in some of the same ways I do and most importantly, she’s a natural leader.  I’ve seen her in a variety of situations take control, diffuse conflict, demand results, cajole, push, apologize, motivate – in short, all of those things that leaders need to do.  This past Wednesday afternoon she did something I would have predicted she would do – because I know her so well.  Even though it was out of the ordinary.  She led.  Naturally. 

Here’s what happened.

She and her husband Matt were picking their daughter up from swim lessons at the local high school.  She looked up and saw a man covered in flames – burning from head to toe.  She immediately handed Matt her youngest daughter and ran toward the man yelling back to Matt, “Call 911”.  As she got closer to the screaming, flaming, flailing man, she saw the source of the conflagration – his riding lawn mower.  It was 10 feet or so away from him - obviously having exploded.  She yelled to the screaming man, “Get on the ground and roll!  Roll!  It will put the fire out!”  He did.  Heather took her jean jacket off and started beating the flames on the man as the mower spouted more fire.  Matt ran up (the kids were in the hands of another mom and the 911 call had been made) and used the kids’ backpack to help.  They got the fire out and stayed with the very badly burned man trying to comfort him until ambulances and fire trucks came and carted him away.  Police and fire crews questioned them both for some time and finally they were told they could leave.   Matt took the kids home and Heather came back to work.  She was shaken.  She’d never seen a situation like that.  Yet, she knew what to do.  She acted.  And did her best to save the man’s life (sadly, he died of an infection on Saturday).

Another thing to consider:  Heather is 5 months pregnant with the Haas’ 3rd child.

Here’s what the local TV station had to say:  News Story 

Firemen are trained to do what Heather did.  Average people don’t know what to do.  Leadership development courses wouldn’t help most of us in that moment of crisis.  Management skills training wouldn’t take you there.  We either act and lead or we don’t.  The kind of leadership Heather displayed is something she was born with.  It’s there or it isn’t.  With Heather, it is.  I’ve seen it.

At Advisa, we augment leadership skills with leadership and management training – that’s our business.  We believe we truly do help people lead better.  But, Heather has a special something that makes her different.  She’s a natural leader.  And Advisa is lucky to have her.  

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!