12 Questions to Inspire your Business

Think of the best place you’ve ever worked in your career, or the most highly reputable business with whom you have been involved — what was the magic formula that made the workplace so special?

One of my favorite business books,  First Break All the Rules, offers the closest formula of 12 business attributes that have been distilled from thousands of interviews with the world’s most successful managers and organizations.  The book frames business wisdom in the form of 12 questions that are easily asked by any manager in any organization.  If your business answers these 12 questions with a strong positive correlation, you likely run a top notch group or organization that is inspired, motivated and achieving consistent business results.

Without giving away all of the secrets of this book, the 12 questions provide common sense clues to building an inspired team or organization.

For example, rank your department between 1 and 5 (1=never, 5=always):

“I have clear expectations of my job”

“I have all the resources I need to do my job”

“I have been given feedback (positive or constructive) within the last 7 days by my supervisor”  …..and so on

Those questions where your team answers in the lower quartile?   you probably need some work in that area.  I have used this 12 question template several times to create a baseline of morale and capability when joining a new department.  It’s a great tool to define opportunities for business change, inspire new business capability and build improved results within a team.

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3 Reasons Why You Need a “Black Cloud” in Your Business

My unofficial middle name is “The Black Cloud”.  There’s a funny story behind how I got this name…

Several years ago, my husband was golfing in a charity tournament with 3 new acquaintances.  As is customary in golf, the foursome members shook hands, introduced themselves and shared where they worked.  One of the gentlemen was a Vice President at the company where I was employed.  Over the course of the next few holes, the golfers exchanged pleasantries, and chatted about those people they might know in common.

My husband said, “Do you know Meryle Corbett?”  The vice president replied, “Yeah – we call her The Black Cloud!  You should see how she comes around to our department trying to clamp down on our spending.  If there’s a new rule out there to batten down and take control, she’ll find it and enforce it.”

A few holes later, the vice president finally asked, “How do you know Meryle, anyway?”  My husband replied, “I sleep with her!”     The vice president’s jaw dropped, he turned beet red and back-pedalled big time.  My husband, a prankster, enjoyed the awkward moment and then smoothed over the incident.  I do remain pretty good friends with that vice president to this day, even though I now work elsewhere.

So… Why do you need a Black Cloud in your business?

1)  Black Clouds will identify business risks that you may never think of.  There is a natural tension between the accounting, risk, legal departments versus sales, marketing, customer service departments.  Black clouds will flag the risky possibilities in a business, so your management team can plan to mitigate the worst case scenarios.  Walking into a new opportunity with only half the picture can be fatal.  Black clouds will protect you.

2)  Black Clouds will introduce and maintain discipline and best practices in your business.  Marching down to ask a senior manager not to charge hotel porn movies on his travel expense account may not be my favorite job, but someone’s gotta keep the top of the spenders’ bell curve in line.    Black clouds will help keep all employees disciplined with the right procedures and practices to support the business and protect it from out-of-control costs or problem audit findings.

3)  Black Clouds will always tell you the truth.  When you are a senior manager, some employees suck up and tell you only the good news.  Others will try to snow you with gobbledygook information, or will hide the bad news from you.  CEOs and senior managers need the brutal truth in business if they are going to find the issues, manage them and fix them.  Your Black Cloud is usually the kind of person that will not lie, and who likely won’t sleep very well at night if they think you need to know certain information.  Black Clouds can be depended on to provide an honest viewpoint –  their job depends on the truth.

Still not convinced?  My friends joke about the Black Cloud story, and I often tell new groups how I got my middle name. There is a fun laugh behind this article, but I hope you seriously consider that the CFO or controller or accounting manager in your life, while appearing negative sometimes, is actually your best friend — we are here to help you, protect you and work with you to solve your business problems.   Make sure you have a little bit of Black Cloud in your own business!

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12 Questions — see if you are a winning corporation

One of the best books I have ever read is “First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, which made the New York Times best seller list for 93 weeks.

The book is a result of observations based on  Gallup organization interviews of over one million employees and 80,000 managers in leading organizations over a period of 25 years.   The result:  12 compelling strategies that the best managers and leaders use to create winning corporations that have sustainable success over a long period of time.

These twelve questions can be used as a baseline to assess your employees’  satisfaction in the business, to help you identify gaps in leadership, and to provide a roadmap to build a winning team.

Without giving away all of the book’s secrets, the first few questions, while seeming to be basic, really pinpoint classic flaws in many businesses:

1)  Do I [the employee] know what is expected of me at work?

2)  Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

3)  At work, do I  have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

The above questions lead managers to provide solutions that are not rocket science:

 – ensure clear job expectations

 – provide employees with the proper resources

 – slot the right people into the right job (capitalize on each employee’s strengths)

Have a read, use these 12 questions periodically in your business to survey your leadership progress… you’ll find great tools to build a winning corporation!

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7 signs you might be laid off – and 7 ways to protect yourself

A friend of mine was recently laid off, which came as a huge relief after months of toxic interaction at his company.  We had chatted a few weeks earlier about his suspicions that “something was up in the office”.  No surprise, then, when a termination letter and severance package were handed to him one Monday morning.  The signals?

1)  Budget cuts – Management formally decreased their budgets, and increased the frequency of “we need cost cutting” and “we’re losing money” conversations

2) New, impossible-to-achieve performance targets – the boss required a doubling of sales targets (higher than ever before) with less resources

3) Management insisted that employees formally sign-off on impossible performance targets

4) Computer security changes –  an unusual amount of time was spent by IT technicians updating certain PCs and changing passwords

5) rewrite of the current job position – management removed 30% of the existing job and transferred those responsibilities to another position.  The decreased role also took a corresponding pay cut.

6) Other employees were asked to train and learn existing positions for future “backup”

7) Frequent closed door meetings –  By themselves, a series of closed door meetings may be unrelated to layoffs (an acquisition, someone’s medical issues, a new strategy).  But coupled with the above signs, the odds of a staff reduction in the office may increase.

What can you do about the situation?

1) Stick to factors within your control.  Outside circumstances such as the recession or economy may be driving factors of your company’s business problems; a layoff is not necessarily “personally” directed against you.  Don’t mistake hard-edged but difficult business choices as personal vendettas.  There is no point worrying about what is outside your control.

2) Consider what you can do to help the situation as an employee:  suggest areas for cost reductions, business efficiencies and improvements, etc.   Stay calm, courteous and professional even if the office politics become heated.  Overreacting at any level will put your behavior in the limelight and could contribute to management’s choices on the layoff list.

3) Continue to seek clarity of expectations in your job.  Ask for clarification if you are not sure what is expected of you during changing budgets, job descriptions and work situations.  Always be respectful in your communications to upper management.

4) Keep your health maintenance up to date, in case a layoff is imminent.  Get dental work done, renew the eyeglass prescription.  Keep up a healthy lifestyle (exercise, eat properly) to reduce your stress level.

5) Cut back on personal financial spending where you can.  Stick to “needs” and ignore the “wants” to keep debt levels down.

6) Develop a vision of the better job that you can move to.  A wise mentor once told me, “Don’t run FROM a lousy job, run TO a perfect job!”  Refocus your mind on positive career opportunities.

7) Start taking small steps toward the better job (i.e. take a night course, develop contacts, join a networking group, etc).  Whether you remain in your current position or move elsewhere, shifting your mind onto positive forward thinking options will dilute the toxic emotions that may be swirling around you in your work environment.  Remember:

Luck is opportunity meeting preparedness.  

Good Luck!

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Boiled Frog Syndrome – Are you needing to change?

Once upon a time there was a frog who hopped into a pot of nice, cool, clear water.  He sat in that pot and decided “Life is okay here – no need to change.”   Behind the counter, however, a kitchen chef noticed that a frog had landed in his pot of water – “What a nice surprise, I could make frog soup for dinner!”   So the chef  turned up the heat on the burner ever so slowly.

That frog sat in the pot, not noticing the change in temperature.  After a while, little bubbles in the pot indicated that boiling was imminent.  Still that frog sat and contemplated life as the water became hotter and hotter.  Eventually, the water reached boiling point and the frog perished.

The chef scratched his chin and recalled the last time he tried to make frog soup – setting the water to boiling point first, he dropped a frog into the pot, but upon hitting the boiling water the frog jumped out of the pot and clear across the kitchen.

What lessons can we take from this story?  Are you living with unacceptable conditions, but they came into your life so slowly and in such subtle ways that you haven’t even noticed them?   Would you have walked away from these conditions if you had encountered them in their entirety at an earlier point in your life?

Work life – Have conditions in your workplace evolved over time and slowly become toxic to your health?  Do you dread getting up and going to work each morning?

A wise executive once told me:  if you get up more than three days in a row and dread work, you need to CHANGE SOMETHING.

– Maybe you need to change your attitude.

– Maybe you need to speak with a boss or coworker to correct a problem situation.

– Maybe the culture at your work will not change and you need to consider alternate employment options.

Personal life – have you remained in a relationship that is profoundly negative and draining your energy?  Consider what you can control in your situation and what is beyond your control.

Above all, think of the your life as a blank canvas:  you alone have the power to create the “picture” and determine the destiny of your future.

– Remember who you used to be before ending up in a symbolic pot of boiling water.

– Don’t be afraid to dream about the future and where  you can take your life.  You’ve only one life on this earth, life it to the fullest.

– Change is part of every process in life and death.  Work with the possibilities of change, and use them to enhance your life and your future!

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