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Micro-Manager or Mentor?

Posted on April 22, 2013 by The UCS Team

If you asked any small business owner why they decided to take the leap and start their own business you can almost be certain that, no matter how many reasons they might list, among them will be some version of “I want to be my own boss.”

Some will tell you that wanting to be your own boss is a “bad” reason for starting a business. While we’d agree that if “being my own boss” is your only reason for becoming an entrepreneur it’s rather likely you’re going to have problems, a strong desire to be your own boss can also be a strong foundation upon which to build a successful business – but only if being your own boss is connected to a strong desire to be an exceptional leader.

It’s interesting that a desire to be your own boss commonly stems from being an unhappy employee. According to an article posted on Forbes,

“A Business Insider survey of 225 executives reports 22 percent want to launch their own companies. Why are they willing to make the sacrifice and take the risk? They want to run an enterprise their way. Deep in their hearts, they feel and know they will enjoy more satisfaction and fulfillment by establishing a healthier business culture.”

This same article cites a study by Accenture which indicated that the top reasons why people are unhappy with their jobs are:

1) They don’t like their boss (31%),

2) A lack of empowerment (31%),

3) Internal politics (35%) and

4) Lack of recognition (43%)

Isn’t it Ironic?

So, we’ve got a couple studies that indicate that many people who are unhappy with their jobs want to open their own business because they think they’ll enjoy their work more, doing so will increase their sense of job satisfaction, and they’ll feel more fulfilled. And they intend to do this by creating a “healthier” business culture at their small business. A healthier business culture would seem to be one where:

Employees liked their boss
Employees feel empowered
Employees aren’t hampered by office politics
Employee accomplishments and contributions are recognized

What’s ironic is that many small business owners who think they are creating a healthier business culture by mentoring their employees in ways that meet the above four criteria are actually micromanaging employees. And micro-managed employees generally don’t like their boss, don’t feel empowered, are stymied by internal office politics and hierarchy, and feel their contributions are ignored. In other words, in too many small businesses employees find themselves stuck in the same boat that motivated the small businesses’ owner to start it up in the first place.

But don’t be too hard on yourself. Change is always possible. The first step is to understand the difference between micromanaging and mentoring an employee. Fortunately Jim Rooney provides a succinct summary of the differences between the two:

What is micromanagement? It is excessive involvement by a manager with an employee in regards to their performance. In short, it is imposing work standards and behavior expectations that meet the personal needs of the manager, not the employee. It is to control a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details. The manager has good intentions to assist the employee fulfill their duties, but the employee feels disempowered and not trusted to complete work properly. Productivity falls drastically.

What is mentoring? Mentoring is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person acquire specific skills, attitudes and techniques that increases their value to their employer. The mentor shares personal experiences with the mentee. The mentee test drives the techniques and reports how it worked. The mentor helps them refine the concepts so it works with their personality.

This same article makes a distinction between mentoring and coaching. In essence, mentoring is when you teach less experienced employees using your own experience, knowledge, and skills. On the other hand, coaching according to Rooney is more about perspective. When coaching you “ask questions, listen closely and provide information that helps the other person gain a perspective that is beneficial.” We’d add that coaching helps an employee gain a perspective that is beneficial to that employee’s personal success and productivity in the context of contributing to your successful and productive small business.

Telltale Signs Your Micromanaging Not Mentoring

If it isn’t obvious to you whether or not you’re micromanaging, try asking yourself a few questions:

Do you think you’re better at most “everything” than your employees?
Do you have a hard time delegating?
Do you constantly feel swamped or resent your employees because you think you have to do their job for them?
Do you require employees working on tasks or projects to frequently/constantly report their progress to you? Are employees spending more time putting reports together for you than working on the project or task itself? Would you resent a boss who made you report as frequently?
Do you “take back” projects that haven’t yet been completed just because you found a mistake?
Are you constantly “checking up” on employees? Do you get anxious if you don’t know exactly what an employee is doing at any given moment?
Do you hoard strategic, innovative, or creative projects and restrict your employees to performing boring, repetitive, mind-numbing duties?
When assigning a project to employees do you dictate not just “what” but every “how” to complete the project rather than give your employees the power to identify and deploy tactics and tasks?
Do you sometimes get frustrated because it seems your employees need to get your approval on every little detail? If so, ask yourself how you’ve contributed to this state of affairs. Do you get angry quickly? Are you easy to approach? Do you encourage employees to make decisions appropriate to their position and/or project they are managing?
Do you get the feeling your employees avoid you?

It really isn’t all that difficult to discern whether or not you’re micromanaging. You can most likely tell whether or not your employees like working with you. You know whether or not you’re giving employees recognition for their contributions. And it isn’t too hard to tell if your employees feel empowered to make decisions appropriate to their position as well as how comfortable they are to come to you with ideas and information.

And, if after an honest self-assessment, you’ve identified yourself as micromanaging instead of mentoring and coaching, it isn’t all that difficult to turn things around. Here are a few ways to establish that “healthier business culture” you were determined your small business would operate within:

Don’t be afraid to delegate.
Encourage employees to make decisions within the scope of their duties and/or projects you’ve assigned them. This frees you to involve yourself in identifying high-level goals, strategies, and measureable objectives for achieving those goals. Give employees room to identify tactics and tasks.
Don’t hover – give employees room to get their job done without constantly looking over their shoulder.
We’re not promoting not requiring employees to report back to you – but let them report on how they are managing their duties and projects. Meet regularly with employees to go over their progress. You can require data to be included, but don’t get lost in minutia and, if you find a mistake, concentrate on helping the employee correct the mistake or find a solution to a setback instead of “taking the project back.”
Make yourself available to employees. This might mean setting regular “one-on-one” times to meet for short periods of time with no set agenda. As employees come to know you are there to listen and mentor, trust between yourself and your employees will dramatically increase. Employees will become more willing to be transparent and willing to share ideas when their relationship with “The Boss” is collaborative in nature. In turn, employee productivity will also increase.
Be sure to recognize the work and contributions of your employees. This can be done formally (some type of reward) as well as informally (“Great work” – “Thanks for getting this in on schedule” – “Good idea.”)

Finally, periodically put yourself in your employee’s shoes by asking some pretty basic questions: “If I were my employee, would I like working with me? Would I feel open to discuss problems or share ideas with me? Would I feel comfortable making decisions appropriate to my job or task without clearing any all decisions with me first? Would I feel appreciated?”

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, challenges, jobs, leadership, management, small business | Tagged boss, leadership, managing, mentor, mentoring, micromanaging, small business

The Business Luncheon – Speaking Off the Cuff

Posted on March 21, 2013 by The UCS Team

You’re at the monthly networking luncheon sponsored by your local chamber of commerce – which is great because, as all smart small business owners know, not all networking is done online. You’re holding your own making small talk, and you’re one of the lucky ones who can call themselves a “natural” when it comes to the art of listening – both of which give you a definite edge. But then it happens, someone asks for your opinion or questions you regarding a particular subject.

You’ve been put on the spot and are expected to speak off the cuff.

When you became a small business owner you knew you’d be jumping through a lot of hoops. But you might have missed “Must be an expert at speaking off the cuff.”

Speaking “off the cuff” refers back to the days when shirts had stiff cuffs and those cuffs provided a great place to jot down a few crib notes to keep one on the straight and narrow when making a presentation. Perhaps it’s because most of us no longer wear shirts with hard-as-paper cuffs, the saying now refers to making a presentation or speech with little, or no preparation. This is also called extemporaneous or impromptu speaking.

Thinking on Your Feet

Speaking off the cuff definitely requires the ability to think on your feet – but not in the usual sense as most people view thinking on your feet to mean providing a very quick response. While speaking off the cuff does require you to provide an immediate response – you certainly don’t want to spurt out random, disjointed, and disordered thoughts when out networking for business. You definitely wouldn’t want others to think your “oration skills” were akin to what Winston Churchill, one the absolute greatest speakers of all time, ascribed to Lord Beresford:

“He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, “Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said.”

It’s quite likely that everyone reading this article had no need to be told who Winston Churchill was. Lord Beresford? Not so much. And that fact proves just how important it is to develop the ability to speak off the cuff. Churchill’s credibility as a leader was in large part due to his speaking skills – both prepared and off the cuff. And credibility is the foundation upon which people build trust in your small business. The kind of trust that leads people to buy from you; the kind of trust that leads people to refer business to you.

How It’s Done

As to how to hone your off the cuff skills, well, you’re probably going to find this ironic but the best way to give an unexpected, impromptu response is to be prepared to provide an impromptu response.

But how is it possible to practice your response when you have no idea what question you might be asked or what opinion people are looking for you to express?

Fortunately, there is a very simple formula for preparing your impromptu response (or even a full-fledged speech in front of an audience you weren’t aware you’d be asked to give.) And what it’s called is acronym that, once memorized, you can follow each and every time: P.R.E.P.

P.R.E.P. = Point, Reason, Example, Point.

Pretty simple. Each of these represents the order in which to present your response.

First: State the point you want to make.
Second: Provide a reason that the point is true.
Third: Give an example of that reason.
Fourth: Conclude your response by re-stating your point.

It might look something like this:

You’re in a conversation with another business owner who says, “Sometimes I think employee reviews are a waste of time. What do you think?”

Point: I’ve found employee evaluations to be a useful training tool.

Reason: I’ve had quite a few employees that I knew possessed raw talent, but just hadn’t had the opportunity to develop the skills they had or learn new ones.

Example: Once I hired an entry-level receptionist. She had the technical skills I needed, and was very personable. She had raw people skills, but it quickly became apparent she tended to spend too much time on the phone with clients “chit chatting.” I knew this was wonderful for building rapport, but it kept her from her other duties. As part of her evaluation we created a goal that she spent no longer than a minute transferring a call to the appropriate party and then met once a week for ten minutes to practice and track her progress.

Point: Within just a week she’d not only met that goal, but in the process became more productive in all aspects of her responsibilities. She’s now one of my best Customer Service Managers. If I’d just let her go based on evaluating her performance instead of mentoring and training her, I might have lost a real asset to my business.

This simple formula can prevent you from providing a rambling, hard-to-follow response that does nothing to establish your credibility. You can see that the above “speech” isn’t going to knock Churchill off his pedestal – and that’s just fine because what people are looking for is someone who can express themselves succinctly and logically.

However, this technique requires practice – and then more practice. Practice doesn’t always make perfect, but practice will make using the P.R.E.P. method your habitual means when speaking off the cuff.

How do you practice? There are many books out there that can provide you with topics and simply regularly and consistently practicing in front of friends and family will increase your off the cuff skills. You may also want to join a group, such as Toastmasters, where you can receive constructive criticism as well as learn by example.

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, challenges, jobs, leadership, management, small business, tips | Tagged advertising, marketing, networking, sales, small business, small business owner

Happy International Women’s Day

Posted on March 8, 2013 by The UCS Team

Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate you!

strong woman

Posted in jobs, leadership, management, small business | Tagged small business, women

Strategy: Fitting the Pieces Together

Posted on March 5, 2013 by The UCS Team

puzzle pieces Anyone who’s ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle knows what it’s like to think you’ve found the correct piece only to find it doesn’t quite fit. It looked like it would fit; had the same relative shape and colors. And when you did your darndest to make if fit all you achieved was breaking up the pieces you’d already worked so hard to piece together.

The same thing can happen when fitting together strategies designed to build your business. One way to fit the correct strategies into your business planning is knowing, just like there are different shaped pieces in a puzzle, there are also different types of strategy.

It doesn’t matter how small or how large a business, every business operates on three main levels:

Corporate
Business
Functional

Corporate Strategy. Many a small business owner might argue against the suggestion that their business requires any sort of “corporate level” strategy. Even if you’ve incorporated your business, you did that for legal reasons. You’re a small business - not a corporation.

However, corporate strategy has got nothing to do with size. Corporate strategy is the piece of your small business puzzle that governs the overall direction of your business. You might think of it as strategy at 50,000 feet.

The high-level nature of corporate strategy becomes even clearer when reviewing the three basic types of corporate strategy:

Growth Strategy. Obviously growth strategy is about growing your business. However, corporate growth strategies govern high-level approaches to increasing market share, growing the number and/or types of products and services you offer, as well as adding the number of markets you do business in.
Stability Strategy. With all the emphasis on the importance of the ability of your small business to respond to change, it may seem strange to deploy strategy to keep things the same. However, there are certainly things about your business you do want to sustain – for example things such as your brand reputation, existing customer base, and relationships with trusted vendors.
Renewal Strategy. This is essentially the opposite of stability strategy. Renewal strategies are deployed in response to threats or to overcome a weaknesses. While stability strategies seek sustainability, renewal strategies are designed to institute change. If your customer base is shrinking you’d want to change that, and the first tools in the box you’d want to pull out are renewal strategies.

Business Strategy. This one seems more like it, but prepare to have that bubble burst. Business strategy in the context of the three levels of strategy within a business isn’t a generic term. Instead the core purpose of business strategy is to develop and maintain competitive advantage over rival businesses. Now, it may seem that this would be a job for corporate strategy and, at a different level, it is. However, business strategy is all about designing strategies within “business units.”

Once again, small business owners might bristle thinking they aren’t large enough for business units and therefore don’t require “business strategy.” However, a business unit can be defined as a part of your business that operates independently from other parts of your business.

For instance, say a sole proprietor owns a car repair service. That owner’s accounting activities is a separate business unit from activities he engages in when acting as a mechanic, which is separate from the marketing activities he takes part in when networking at his local chamber of commerce. However, business strategy doesn’t concern itself with the details. For instance, a business strategy would be “Increase local networking activities” not “Attend the chamber of commerce monthly luncheon.”

At the business level, this sole proprietor deploys strategies designed to create and sustain competitive advantage – and strategies for creating competitive advantage generally come under one of three types:

Cost Leadership Strategy. Simply put this is competing on price. It is never a good idea to compete on low(est) cost alone. Think of cost leadership strategies as strategy that creates competitive advantage as the “best value.”
Differentiation Strategy. This is strategy that separates your small business from the pack. But it isn’t enough just to be “different.” Differentiation strategy needs to attend to your customer’s needs, the ability of your business to help them solve their problems. Those needs can be “real” (for instance, “I need to have this bell or whistle on my phone) or more “emotional” (for instance, “I need to trust that your business has my best interest in mind.”)
Focus Strategy. Focus strategy creates competitive advantage by targeting a specific group or niche. For example, our mechanic decides to target professional, college educated women. This gives him an advantage over other car repair services that aren’t specifically targeting this customer profile.

Functional Strategy. Small business owners may find this the easiest type of strategy to relate to as it relates to specific strategies deployed by whatever department or whoever it is whose “function” it is to carry out business strategy. That department or person(s) identify what resources (i.e. time, skill, money, equipment, supplies) are needed to deploy business strategy and what tasks need to be completed at the functional level to deploy the business strategy – and then use those resources and complete those tasks. For example, at a functional level “Increase local networking activities” becomes “Attend monthly chamber of commerce luncheon.”

Functional strategy may appear to be “at the bottom” of the heap – however creating and deploying strategy is not a top-down process. As a matter-of-fact, top-down strategy can be (and very often is) a huge mistake. For instance, functional strategy often informs and influences business strategy. Business strategy often informs and influences corporate strategy. Top-down strategy is like attempting to put a puzzle together starting with the top left piece and working out from there – which is certainly a strategy for putting the puzzle together correctly more difficult than it has to be.

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, challenges, jobs, leadership, management, small business, strategies | Tagged growth, opportunities, small business, strategies

You’ve Got to do Your Homework

Posted on December 21, 2012 by The UCS Team

“I need to have a business plan written. I need it by Tuesday September 3 by 1 p.m. Pacific time. I want to open a machine shop that fabricates machines that builds (industry type obscured.). Please follow this link if you don’t know about this type of business (link obscured).

I want you to follow the business plan model that is attached to this job posting. I think it will be about 8-12 pages, but it could be more because there are quite a few resumes. I have also included a link that shows the different sections that need to be in the plan.

The above (with a few changes in order to protect the naïve) is an actual post from some small business person (in particular a “want-to-be” business person) looking for someone to write their business plan.

At first glance it might not seem out of the ordinary. Unless you know that it was posted exactly 2.5 days before their deadline. And, considering they have such a specific deadline, it isn’t much of a leap to assume this person very likely needs said business plan to present to a business banking manager or other investor.

In 2.5 days.

“Well, you might be thinking,” at least they provided some information to help put the plan together. Well, let’s review one of those resources. They provide a pretty good template for a business plan that includes the following sections:

Executive Summary
Business Description
Marketing Section
Location Section
Management Section
Financial Section
Milestone Section
Exit Strategy
Bibliography

As business plan templates go, this one is thorough and, if followed, would make a great presentation when applying for a business loan or to an investor. It is quite detailed; under each section there is a bulleted list of what is to be included. Again, the template is pretty dead-on as far as providing a rather exceptional outline for putting a plan together. For example, under “Location” you are advised to (again, the wording has been changed to protect the naïve):

List the advantages of your location (i.e. zoning, taxes, wages, regulations)
List proximity to vendors and suppliers
List proximity to competitors

The list is extensive and certainly would provide investors with information they need. All sections are similarly outlined. The Marketing Section includes the “usual suspects” including identification and analysis of competitors, target market, market position, and market share – the list goes on to include a wide variety of marketing data useful to investors.

So, if this is such a great template, what could be wrong with asking that it be followed?

First off, there’s that pesky “48 hours to complete” deadline. Second, remember that data supplied must be factual and from a reliable resource. Not to mention that the owner does not state the ability to provide any hard data themselves – which, along with the misguided notion that you can simply throw together a business plan of this scope in 48 hours, most likely means the owner has little, if any, data (including their financials) to provide the business plan consultant. And, third, this particular plan is most likely overkill for such a small business considering the detail it demands.

Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot

However, the point of this post isn’t to bust the chops of whoever posted this job online. It is to point out the dangers of going off “half-cocked.” When you do, it is likely you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot – or at least be greatly disappointed and not meet your objective which, as we said, in this case was most likely putting a business plan together to attract funding.

A second point of this post is to point out the danger of thinking that hiring a consultant relieves you, the small business owner, of any responsibility to perform your due diligence (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, “do your due diligence” is about equal to the saying “do your homework.) Consultants, no matter what their expertise, are going to require you to provide them with background as well as data in order to do their job properly – or, at the very least, keep your costs down by not asking the consultant to “do it all.”

Sadly, the person who posted this job will probably have quite a few takers. And that is perhaps the most frightening aspect of being unprepared when seeking a consultant or contractor – there are people out there who will take your money and essentially provide you with useless service. In this example, any consultant worth their salt wouldn’t dream of putting a business plan together in 2.5 days from scratch knowing the owner has little (or no) information to provide them and (again this is an assumption, but most likely a correct assumption) the hopeful owner has little (if any) business experience.

This situation is akin to being able to put together that book report at the last minute without having to read the book. Not being prepared to write that paper may have worked in high school, but it isn’t going to cut the mustard in college. When writing a business plan you’re not looking for an “A” – but you need to do your homework in order to produce a high-grade plan to attract investors or receive bank funding.

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, jobs, leadership, management, small business, strategies, tips | Tagged business growth, business plan, small business

“Gotta Support the Team”

Posted on December 11, 2012 by The UCS Team

Anybody out there who happens to be a parent knows how hard it can be to let go. From the first time your child is able to walk across the room to when they leave for college, nurturing your child means getting them ready to make their own decisions. Even though the intention of every parent is to raise children who go on to be successful adults, letting go isn’t an easy thing to do.

It isn’t unusual for a small business owner to think of their small business as their “baby.” And, certainly the intention of every small business owner is to create a successful small business. However, similar to a parenting being a process of letting go, the same is most often true for a small business owner. Some of you may already have experienced the (often unexpected) pain of having to “delegate” even routine day-to-day procedures that involve no actual decision making. Even though you thought you’d never miss having to wear so many hats at one time – giving up one of those hats and letting an employee “takeover” was more difficult than you ever thought it might be.

And while you may have become a great delegator, many small business owners out there are interested in taking their small business to the next level. You may be one of them – but you hesitate because in the back of your mind you’re thinking you just don’t have the band width.

the team

But maybe you’ve got more band width available that you realize. No, we’re not talking about traditional “delegating” or even traditional “project teams” – what we’re talking about is a resource that was introduced in the 1960’s by psychologist Frederick Herzberg and has been used in countless numbers of success businesses.

Meaningful Work

In the 60’s Herzberg’s research focused on “work enrichment.” He is considered to be one of the most influential thought leaders in business management and often referred to as “The Father of Job Enrichment.” Herzberg created the “Motivator-Hygiene” theory. His theory talks about the two major factors that make people tick when it comes to working and identified those factors as:

Hygiene Factors: Human behavior dictates that we work for factors related to our biological and survival needs. In other words, the basics: food, clothing, and shelter. If we don’t work to meet these needs it can be painful. Human beings have an in-born drive to avoid pain. You may think what drives to work is your car, the bus, or maybe a train – but the desire to avoid pain is a major driver that gets us to work.

Motivator Factors: The need to eat, put clothes on our back, and a roof over our head may all get us to work every morning but, according to Herzberg, what motivates us to do a great job once we get there is a whole different story. Among others, Herzberg identified achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself as the chief psychological factors that prompt human beings to do their best work.

In other words, when people find their work meaningful, there is a tendency for them to put in their best efforts.

Job Enrichment and Self-Direction

Not only did Herzberg identify what motivates us to do our best work, he also provided suggestions for how employers could create meaningful work environments. Among those recommendations are the following:

Remove unnecessary controls
Hold individuals personally accountable for the level and results of their work
Allow a person to complete a “natural unit” of work (as opposed to monotonous tasks)
Provide employees with some autonomous authority (freedom to do their job in their own way)
Institute a mandate that top management report out to all workers, not just supervisors
Give workers new and increasingly more difficult tasks and responsibilities

It doesn’t take much thought to see the value of Herzberg’s approach. Most small business owners can certainly relate. As a matter-of-fact, his suggestions for motivating employees could likely also be used to list the reasons why you decided to start your business in the first place.

The list above paraphrases Herzberg’s actual suggestions, but we’ve changed the wording just a bit in order to demonstrate the relationship between Herzberg’s motivators and something called “self-managed teams.” And we want to do that because self-managed teams may just be the ticket to growth you need for your small business without stretching yourself too thin. Herzberg was originally speaking to the power of his motivators to spark individuals to become self-directed top performers however, over time, these same motivators came to be applied to teams, self-managed teams.

A “self-managed” team has come to mean a team where the employees who make up the group are autonomously both responsible and accountable for the results of a project (i.e. creating/producing a product; creating/delivering a service.) This is a far cry from the traditional “top down” organizational approach where employees are given specific tasks related to their skills or what “department” they work for. Instead, a self-managed team carries out all planning and supporting tasks: budgeting, scheduling, and technical on an across the board basis. Team leadership is often shared, with each individual taking the helm on a rotating basis.

Pros and Cons

Clearly a self-managed team fits Herzberg’s recipe for a group of employees motivated to top performance. Additionally, self-managed teams can be less costly as well as more productive than using the more traditional hierarchical approach. Not to mention that for many small business owners a self-managed team relieves them of the day-to-day responsibility of managing the team. Finally, decisions made by self-managed teams tend to be good ones as they are decisions made by those who will either be doing the work themselves, or work closely with those who will.

On the other hand, self-managed teams aren’t a panacea. When a group works well together it can be incredibly creative, innovative, and productive. But sometimes “working well together” can degenerate into a clique. Groups can also become dysfunctional if they develop a “team culture” wherein individuals within the group are hesitant to go outside group “norms.” Additionally, some group members may not be comfortable taking leadership roles and/or the level of personal responsibility they take on a member of the group.

This is where small business owners need to apply a bit of finesse and balance. Although self-managed groups are autonomous, that autonomy is limited to how they manage and carry out their work – they are still required to meet the vision and goals assigned to their team. This means that small business owners are still required to provide leadership demonstrated via supporting and empowering their team(s.) This can be a delicate balance.

Should you decide to pursue a self-managed team approach to management you must do your due diligence (which can include bringing on an outside consultant with expertise in self-managing teams at least in the beginning) as well as provide in depth in-service training to members of the team. However, when done correctly, self-managed teams can be a very effective way to “get going” by “letting go.”

Posted in business growth, jobs, leadership, management, small business, tips | Tagged leadership, management, small business, small business owners, teamwork

Leading versus Managing Your Small Business

Posted on December 2, 2012 by The UCS Team

leader Small business owners know they need to manage their businesses effectively in order to be successful. Most small business owners also know they need to provide positive leadership. However, truly successful small business owners understand the difference between managing and leading.

There’s a ton of ways to describe the difference between the two (and we’ll do a bit of describing that difference in this post) but perhaps Rear Admiral Grace Hopper said it best:

“You manage things, you lead people”

What a profoundly simple way to point out the difference between managing and leading. Her definition takes a lot of the confusion out of the differences between managing and leading. After all, it’s pretty difficult to confuse a person with a thing.

For example, say you’re a small business owner whose goal is to increase productivity. You are certainly going to have to manage your employees in such a way that the end result is an increase in productivity. You are also going to have to lead your employees towards greater productivity.

Using Hopper’s definition, managing greater productivity is related to things. Things like managing work schedules, deliveries, processes, programs, policies. These are all things. However, leading your employees to greater productivity is related to the people who will be keeping to those schedules, making those deliveries, following those processes, working those programs, and adhering to those policies.

You Can’t Inspire a Task

To get a better picture of the difference let’s take a look at processes. If your goal is to increase productivity it makes a good business sense to devise processes that save both money and time. A small business owner manages creating an effective process by either sitting down and creating that process description themselves or delegating the task out to an employee. The process is a thing, whereas the small business owner or employee creating that process is obviously a person.

And here is where the difference lies. Putting the process together is a series of tasks. You know when those tasks are complete because they have a beginning and an end. But you can’t inspire a task. You can’t motivate a task. But, you can inspire and motivate people performing a task. And you do that via leadership.

However, just as getting things done requires different types of tasks, motivating and inspiring people requires different types, or styles, of leadership.

When we think of effective leaders quite often we think in terms of “top-down” with people “at the top” leading the next person down from them and so on. Hopefully you now realize that “top-down” doesn’t describe leadership at all. Instead, it describes a form of management where one person is responsible to dictate what tasks need to get done (or objectives achieved, goals that need to be met) to the person “below” them. That person, in turn, is responsible to deliver that task back up the line. It is because top-down is task oriented that we know top-down is managing and not leading.

Many small business owners have had various “bosses” in their careers prior to running their small business and know how that boss behaved towards them when delegating and managing tasks had a direct impact on how inspired and motivated employees were when completing those tasks to do their best work. In other words, leadership is a behavior that impacts the level of result achieved via engaging in specific activities (tasks.)

Daniel Goleman conducted research with 3,000 executives with the goal of identifying leadership behaviors that achieve the best results. In a Harvard Business Review article he authored entitled Leadership That Gets Results he describes “precise leadership behaviors yield positive results.”

Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance.
Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision.
Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.
Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.
Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.
Coaching leaders develop people for the future.

Goleman also points out “leaders who get the best results don’t rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week.” Instead, different styles work best for different situations, groups, and individuals. For example, a small business owner may utilize a coaching style of leadership when their goal isn’t only to get great results when conducting specific, time bound tasks, but also develop employees to fill future roles within the business.

Both managing and leading are essential roles small business owners take on when growing their business and knowing the difference between those two roles is an essential component for growing a successful, profitable small business.

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, jobs, leadership, management, small business, tips | Tagged inspiration, leadership, management, small business, success

The Value of Values

Posted on November 23, 2012 by The UCS Team

values There’s a really good chance that figuring out what the core values of your small business are isn’t at the top of your hit list. Sure, you’ve got values – but how important can taking the time to articulate, and then share, those values be?

Very important. As a matter-of-fact core values are aptly named as they provide the core upon which literally every aspect of your business is built. Your core values impact every business decision you make, from what products you sell to who you hire.

First let’s take a look at how important core values are when hiring staff. We’ll start off by saying that small business owners should never (and never is a very strong word) hire anyone whose core values are not in synch with the core values of their business.

If you’ve got two candidates where one candidate has a resume to die for, every skill set you could possibly desire in place, is extremely motivated and ambitious – yet doesn’t share or resists the core values of your small business, give them a pass. Instead, hire a candidate who may not be as apparently “on fire” as Ms. or Mr. Top Gun. If you don’t heed that advice and hire the out-of-synch Top Gunner it’s very likely you’ll end up spending more time putting out fires than benefiting from the heat of their ambition.

Think of it this way – hiring employees that share the core values of your small business means you are hiring employees who will more easily be able to formulate productive relationships with other employees as they share the common ground those values create. You also hire employees who are most likely to create the relationships with your customers and represent your business to the marketplace in a manner that brands your business in a positive light. Values are what guide behavior. When you hire employees that share the core values of your small business you are more likely to hire employees who will behave in ways that benefit your business – not to mention your customers.

Making Decisions that Bring Value to Your Business

The core values of your small business are also essential as they provide you with a road map for making good business decisions. The core values of your small business act as a compass and both allow you to accurately access where you’re at now, as well as map out how to get to where you want to be – and not in some “New Age” kind of way.

A simple example are small business core values that include trust on the list. It is easy to see how trust guides business decisions as to the relationship you create with your employees and customers – but it also guides other business decisions that might not be so apparent. For instance, the vendors, consultants, distributors, or suppliers you choose to contract with. In each of those instances, the ability and willingness of those contractors to build relationships built on trust becomes a major criterion for you to continue to do business with them. In turn, the ability to trust those you contract with reduce the risk involved in investing resources in those contracts. And decisions that reduce risk are good business decisions.

Most small business owners are, in fact, guided by core values. They just haven’t taken the time to put those core values into writing. Taking that time provides real world benefits to your business, your employees, those you do business with, and your customers.

Posted in business growth, business opportunities, jobs, leadership, management, small business | Tagged adding values, business growth, small business, values

Using (or Not) Advice for Your Small Business

Posted on November 12, 2012 by The UCS Team

advice The other day marketing blogger Ashley Truscott of Waterfall Marketing posted a piece asking (and providing some good answers) to a great question: Why do clients pay for marketing advice and not use it? This leads to a more comprehensive question: Why do clients pay for any advice from consultants and/or subject matter experts and not use it?

Truscott tells a story of a former client who’d utilized her firm’s services to assist in developing marketing strategy. Along the way she (of course) scrutinized her client’s website and her recommendations included removing an outdated job listing. Months later (and no longer acting as a consultant to the client) she had reason to stop by her old client’s website – and guess what she found. Yup, that now even more outdated job listing was still there.

Now, it just happens that her (former) client’s small business is an executive search firm. Certainly including placements that no longer exist on their website certainly doesn’t do anything to up their credibility factor. As a matter-of-fact, oversights and mistakes such as this kill business because they only serve to notify prospects that your small business overlooks important details and makes mistakes. How can a prospect trust your small business to not only meet, but exceed, their expectations when researching a small businesses’ website that makes it appear that small business isn’t even reliable even to itself?

Truscott’s opinion as to why such things happen is the fact small business clients often simply don’t have the resources to implement recommendations received from consultants they’ve brought on. Resources can mean a lot of things, but usually we’re talking time and/or money. If you don’t have the funds to hire someone to complete necessary tasks and you don’t have time to do them yourself or via existing employees, it can seem you are between a rock and a hard place.

So what’s a small business owner with limited resources to do?

Prioritize and Plan

Small business owners with limited resources (and what small business owner do you know with unlimited resources?) who use that limited supply of resources to bring on a consultant demonstrate a strong desire to improve and grow their business. Unfortunately, once the consultant has done their job and delivered their recommendations, small business owners can become overwhelmed at what can appear to be a never-ending laundry list of things that need to get done.

We don’t know exactly why Truscott’s client never lifted that bad listing off their website. We don’t know how many, if any, of her recommendations were put into place. But what you – as a small business owner – can most likely relate to is the possibility that some things got done and others didn’t. Many times it can seem that you need to fry the big fish first. But little fish (such as bad information on your website that takes maybe 10 minutes to correct) can cause just as much – sometimes more – damage than what appear to be major issues.

For example, say you’ve brought in an expert to conduct a strategic assessment of your small business. Issues coming out of that assessment include some pretty shaky accounting practices that must get fixed. If they aren’t, you’re going to have some real cash flow issues. Not good. On the other hand, there’s that pesky little mistake on your website. Knee jerk response is to hit the ground running, take time away from other activities as well as add another 15 hours to your week fixing the accounting problem until it gets done.

However, the chance you take is that, in the meantime, not taking the 10 minutes to make that change on your website can mean losing clients and customers and producing who knows what negative word of mouth regarding your business reputation. This can also cause huge cash flow problems. Not only that, it’s a much easier and faster fix than your accounting issues.

Resisting Change versus Evaluating Change

There’s also another reason small business owners sometimes don’t follow through on – or even ignore – the recommendations of the subject matter experts they hire – they simply don’t want to or, to state that a bit more nicely, they are uncomfortable with those recommendations. Too often small business owners are so enmeshed in their business they simply cannot let go of ideas or practices that are, in fact, hurting rather than helping to build their business. Just like a parent who isn’t willing to listen to recommendations from a teacher regarding their child’s sub-par performance, many small business owners find it difficult to find fault with “their baby.”

Of course, it also doesn’t make sense for small business owners to act on advice provided by consultants without question. After all, it is “your baby.” It is your business and part of your business is making sure you are acting in the best interest of both your business and your customers. And that means evaluating outside recommendations based on their merit. If you don’t understand, or disagree with advice provided – ask your consultant to back up what they’re telling you to do with real world examples from either their own clients, or within your industry sector. Talk to other related or similar small businesses to see if the advice is working for them. Check out the competition that’s giving you the best run for your money and see what they’re doing. Deciding not to pursue a consultant’s recommendations after careful research and evaluation is also a form of “taking action.”

In summary, small business clients often don’t act on the advice from consultants they’ve hired due to limited resources or resistance to change. In the case of limited resources prioritizing those recommendations and then putting a plan in place to carry them out can both save money as well as decrease becoming overwhelmed. When small business owners find themselves resisting recommendations appropriate research reveals whether or not they need to let go of preconceived (but incorrect) notions as to how to operate their business, as well as the possibility that the consultant’s recommendation isn’t right for their business. If neither case is true, then buck up, prioritize, and put a plan into place for putting those recommendations to work for your small business.

Posted in advertising, business financing, business growth, business opportunities, jobs, leadership, management, marketing, small business, strategies, tips | Tagged advice, help, marketing, small business, strategies, tips

Burn Out and the Small Business Owner: It’s 10 P.M. Are You Still Working?

Posted on October 8, 2012 by The UCS Team

exhausted If you’re reading this post when most people are bedding down for the night you might be headed for Small Business Owner burn out.

Small business burn out is a double whammy threat: a threat to your business as well as a threat to your health. We all know that owning a small business isn’t for sissies – but this doesn’t mean working at a tilt destined to run both you and your business into the ground.

Are You Burned Out?

The Mayo Clinic provides a checklist to help determine if you could be experiencing job related burn out:

Have you become cynical or critical at work?
Do you drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started once you arrive?
Have you become irritable or impatient with co-workers, customers or clients?
Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive?
Do you lack satisfaction from your achievements?
Do you feel disillusioned about your job?
Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply not feel?
Have your sleep habits or appetite changed?
Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, backaches or other physical complaints?

It might surprise you to learn that the Mayo Clinic advises that you could be experiencing burn out if you said yes to even one of the above. But perhaps the biggest clue that burn out may be looming is if you’ve come to feel you small business has become “just another job.”

Of course there’s no secret to why it is so easy for small business owners to lose their passion and energy. If you happen to be one of the 11.8% of small business owners who work more than 60 hours a week you might think that the time you’re putting in is the sole cause of your burn out (source smallbusiness.com.) Who wouldn’t be tired after such a long week?

However, the amount of time worked is only one factor that can contribute to burn out. Again, according to the Mayo Clinic, here are some major contributors to job related burn out. Let’s take a look as these causal factors of job burnout as they relate to small business owners:

Lack of control. Employees may attribute to lack of control in their work environment to their employers. It would seem that owning your own business would give you more control. At least that’s what you used to think. And it isn’t only the economy where you feel you lack, or have lost control. Managing employees, customers, vendors, and resources along with the rest of what it takes to keep your doors open doesn’t mean being able to control all aspects of your business.

Unclear job expectations. Again there was a time you were perhaps crystal clear what the job description “small business owner” included. However, as you’ve build your business those waters may have become muddied.

Dysfunctional workplace dynamics. “Employee Management” – need we say more? You may have started off as a “One Man or Woman” show with no training or insight as to how to build successful teams. Too often this can result in attempting to manage a chaotic workforce.

Mismatch in values. This can happen if your business grew in a direction that differs from the values and principles you originally used as you guide. It’s bad enough working for an employer whose values don’t match your own. Attempting to run your own business that goes against your own values, no matter how profitable, takes a psychological toll.

Poor job fit. Too often small business owners hang onto doing things they don’t enjoy, have no interest in, or don’t match their skills – even when in a position to hire an appropriate employee to take over those duties. Don’t make that mistake.

Extremes of activity. What once was exciting may now be monotonous or your small business may be experiencing hiccups that create chaos – both can lead to exhaustion.

From Burnt Out to Recommitted

burned out Mayo provides some suggestions for managing job related burn out. Here are three of our suggestions as to how small business owners can dig their way out:

Identify major challenges and obstacles that are contributing to stress. A great way to do this is via a strategic assessment of your business. Once identified and assessed, you can take back some “control” via appropriate strategies, goals, objectives, and tactics.

Find yourself a mentor or coach. “It’s lonely at the top” is very true for small business owners. It isn’t a great idea to vent on partners, employees, friends, or family. It is also difficult for a small business owner to be objective about themselves or their business. A business mentor or coach can provide both support and objectivity.

Make time to have fun. It sounds counter-intuitive, but just because you work 60 hours a week doesn’t mean you don’t have time to pursue your personal interests, spend time with friends and family, have some fun, or just plain relax. Pull out your schedule and make an appointment to do so. The success of your business may well depend on whether or not you’re wise enough to take some time away from your business.