Category: Leadership

Trust tips

2/28/2018

Trust
I was recently working with a group of managers discussing team growth. One of the topics we discussed was their dissatisfiers. They listed some to improve by multi-voting and scoring. The highest concern for them was Trust.

Trust is essential to boosting employee engagement, motivation, and open discussion. Trust within the organization is important at all levels and crucial for your employees to believe in each other. When they don’t, communication, teamwork and performance inevitably suffer. So it is critical for managers to constantly reinforce their trustworthiness.

Here are 10 ways that leaders at all levels can build trust by aligning actions with words:

1. Trust must be earned building trust takes hard work.
2. Be honest and supportive.
3. Build in accountability.
4. Be consistent.
5. Make a connection.
6. Commit to follow through.
7. Model the behavior you seek.
8. Encourage rather than command.
9. Give credit and take blame.
10. Show competence.

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Benchmarking update Q&A

9/24/2017

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Benchmarking update Q&A
In the business world, benchmarking is the continual refinement of your business by comparing it to the best of the best in the same industry.

When was the last time you benchmarked your performance?

Do you do it on a continual basis?

How often do you rethink what you are doing based on your measures?

Here’s a quick refresher on the benchmarking steps:

Identify the areas or processes you want to evaluate. These should be activities that provide you with a competitive advantage.
Determine which output measures you want to improve.
Pick the highest performers in within your industry and those of similar industries. Do not limit yourself to only your industry benchmark against industries that perform the best in the operational segments of your business. For example, if your business repurposes furniture you may benchmark other furniture businesses but you may also benchmark other company’s logistical operational framework, delivery mechanisms, material sourcing and others.
Determine the measured distance between the benchmarked company’s performance and your business.
Develop a tactical plan for addressing these gaps.
Implement the necessary operational components to address the gaps.

So benchmarking can get you from good performance to great performance.

How can you be even better? Innovation!

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Business Startup Concerns

3/26/2017

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Business Startup Concerns

A business entrepreneur recently asked me to review their business plan for a new startup venture. They were concerned of the typical business startup concerns such as client relations, marketing, and business operations. Do I have my accounting right? Do I have enough start up cash?

Here is some of the advice I gave them:

Part of the key to being a good business owner is having a degree of humility and being a person people enjoy working with, having the confidence in your abilities to know that everything is going to be fine, developing the confidence within your business to be proficient and knowledgeable about your companies issues and growth. Then finally, being a good communicator who is able to effectively communicate with your customers and understand their needs.

The hardest parts to accept as you are new business owner is that everything will take longer than you expect it to take.
You will never have enough time or resources to do the quality of work that you want in the timeframe that you need it.
Everything you will do as a new business owner will cost more than you think it should.
Many people will disappoint you along the way.

First and foremost I told him to always act with integrity. Simple integrity goes a long way with business and your customers.

Be aware of your operational tempo and know when you need to seek out additional help in terms of improving your communications, improving your operational performance, diagnosing problems, training your employees, increasing your market base, or improving customer satisfaction. It takes time to develop the ultimate package of management skills for managing a new business but with a good plan and good vision all you need is drive and motivation. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Need a bit of motivation try this:
“When it hurts” at https://www.instituteforstrategicimprovement.com/links-page.html

Need help with fine-tuning your operational performance. Contact us here”:
https://www.instituteforstrategicimprovement.com/contact-us.html

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10 Things

1/31/2017

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The 10 things that can help your business today

ROI – Return On Investment - Ensure every project, proposal, and initiative submitted to you includes an in depth analysis of the return on your investment in the product this helps ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget, and allows you to develop more efficient processes.

Huddle Boards - Start the morning out right by engaging with employees and focusing on the process. Help by removing roadblocks and bottlenecks and determining where variation exists.

GEMBA Walks - Go out into the workplace and see where the work is happening. Engage with your employees and empower them to make improvements.

Operational Excellence - this is a philosophy of the workplace where problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership results in the ongoing improvement in an organization. The process involves focusing on the customers' needs, keeping the employees positive and empowered, and continually improving the current activities in the workplace.

Standard work - is used to identify defects, create assignments, and establish the discipline of daily follow through as a team. The leader’s role is to coach employees in the first step of the PDSA-cycle to see and understand the problems through prior day (past 24 hours).

A3 - A3 story boards are used as a 1 page depiction of a process using Plan - Do – Study – Act to create consistency and further critical thinking.

Value stream mapping - is a lean-management method for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that take a product or service

Voice of The Customer - The “voice of the customer” is a process used to capture the requirements and feedback from the customer (internal or external) to provide the customers with the best in class services and product quality.

Develop Lean Six Sigma Yellow, Green, and Black belt employees – these individuals can reduce waste and improve efficiency, productivity, and performance.
https://www.instituteforstrategicimprovement.com/store/c4/Certifications.html

KPI – Focus on your specific KPI’s – KPI’s are a set of quantifiable measures that a company uses to gauge its performance over time.

Check this at LinkedIn
The 75 KPIs Every Manager Needs To Know from LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130905053105-64875646-the-75-kpis-every-manager-needs-to-know
To measure financial performance:
1. Net Profit

2. Net Profit Margin

3. Gross Profit Margin

4. Operating Profit Margin

5. EBITDA

6. Revenue Growth Rate

7. Total Shareholder Return (TSR)

8. Economic Value Added (EVA)

9. Return on Investment (ROI)

10. Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)

11. Return on Assets (ROA)

12. Return on Equity (ROE)

13. Debt-to-Equity (D/E) Ratio

14. Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC)

15. Working Capital Ratio

16. Operating Expense Ratio (OER)

17. CAPEX to Sales Ratio

18. Price Earnings Ratio (P/E Ratio)

To understand your customers:

19. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

20. Customer Retention Rate

21. Customer Satisfaction Index

22. Customer Profitability Score

23. Customer Lifetime Value

24. Customer Turnover Rate

25. Customer Engagement

26. Customer Complaints

To gauge your market and marketing efforts:

27. Market Growth Rate

28. Market Share

29. Brand Equity

30. Cost per Lead

31. Conversion Rate

32. Search Engine Rankings (by keyword) and click-through rate

33. Page Views and Bounce Rate

34. Customer Online Engagement Level

35. Online Share of Voice (OSOV)

36. Social Networking Footprint

37. Klout Score

To measure your operational performance:

38. Six Sigma Level

39. Capacity Utilisation Rate (CUR)

40. Process Waste Level

41. Order Fulfilment Cycle Time

42. Delivery In Full, On Time (DIFOT) Rate

43. Inventory Shrinkage Rate (ISR)

44. Project Schedule Variance (PSV)

45. Project Cost Variance (PCV)

46. Earned Value (EV) Metric

47. Innovation Pipeline Strength (IPS)

48. Return on Innovation Investment (ROI2)

49. Time to Market

50. First Pass Yield (FPY)

51. Rework Level

52. Quality Index

53. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

54. Process or Machine Downtime Level

55. First Contact Resolution (FCR)

To understand your employees and their performance:

56. Human Capital Value Added (HCVA)

57. Revenue Per Employee

58. Employee Satisfaction Index

59. Employee Engagement Level

60. Staff Advocacy Score

61. Employee Churn Rate

62. Average Employee Tenure

63. Absenteeism Bradford Factor

64. 360-Degree Feedback Score

65. Salary Competitiveness Ratio (SCR)

66. Time to Hire

67. Training Return on Investment

To measure your environmental and social sustainability performance:

68. Carbon Footprint

69. Water Footprint

70. Energy Consumption

71. Saving Levels Due to Conservation and Improvement Efforts

72. Supply Chain Miles

73. Waste Reduction Rate

74. Waste Recycling Rate

75. Product Recycling Rate

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Leadership

10/16/2016

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Dr. W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) is best known for reminding management that most problems are systemic and that it is management's responsibility to improve the systems so that workers can do their jobs more effectively.

Deming argued that higher quality leads to higher productivity and that leads to long-term competitive strength. He noted that workers are responsible for 10 to 20 percent of the quality problems in a factory and that the remaining 80 to 90 percent is under management's control.

Deming's theories were taught as a part of his System of Profound Knowledge. His knowledge system consists of four interrelated parts: (1) Theory of Optimization; (2) Theory of Variation; (3) Theory of Knowledge; and (4) Theory of Psychology.

Deming wanted to transform management and began teaching his 14 points. Here's a chart of them.

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Trust tips

Benchmarking update Q&A

Business Startup Concerns

10 Things

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