“Lean Production”

These five principles are the foundation of the philosophy of “lean production:”

1. Offer customers what they want, not what you want to give them.


2. Each project or service has a value stream, consisting of all the actions necessary to take it from the initial concept to the hands of the customer. Test each procedure to determine whether it creates value. If it does not, change or eliminate it.


3. Make flow continuous by doing away with waiting time and unnecessary inventory.


4. Rely on customer pull instead of manufacturer push.


5. Keep seeking perfection through these principles.

Most businesses now take these principles for granted, assuming they must provide customers with high-quality products at the lowest possible prices. Yet most consumers are still unsatisfied. Lean production was not enough; to make your customers happy, you must apply lean principles to consumption as well.

Five Inexorable Consumption Trends

In its complexity, consumption resembles production. Five trends are shaping the way consumption works:

1. Mass customization offers customers more choices but requires them to put more time and effort into decision-making.


2. Deregulation increases both freedom and risk for the customers.


3. The economy is moving beyond service to self-service. Customers must invest energy and time in installation, maintenance, upgrading and recycling.


4. People have more money and more purchasing power but less time to manage their purchasing decisions.


5. The Internet is bringing the customer into the production process. Some companies demand that customers check Web sites to ensure that production and delivery processes are moving along as they should.

What Customers Want
Customers want you to address their problems with solutions that are total, permanent, time- efficient, convenient in place and time, and tailored to their requirements. This may require reaching for new alternatives, instead of just shuffling the “options” you now offer.
The technology and the organizational models necessary to provide such solutions already exist. But, to use them properly, you must learn to think about consumption in a new way. It is not an adversarial process involving strangers. Collaborate with your customers to identify, define and resolve problems. Fortunately, because every producer is also a consumer, your personal experience will help you diagnose problems and determine solutions. Having both perspectives matters, because to activate lean consumption, the
“efforts of the consumer must fit together with the efforts of the provider.”
Mapping Consumption Patterns
Mapping the process of consumption step by step can help you understand the value you deliver or destroy at each step. Because consumption and provision are two sides of the same coin, don’t stop at mapping one or the other – map both. Identify all of the steps involved in, for example, a car repair. Once you calculate how much time each step takes, including the time consumers must spend on activities such as waiting and checking the work, you will see the difference between perceived time and clock time.
The map will show you the entire value stream at a glance. Often, the map will reveal that customers are effectively paying a tax of time for your services. This leads to customer dissatisfaction and, eventually, to customer loss. For example, many companies now force customers to engage in “unpaid work,” such as checking shipment and delivery schedules, installing software, maintaining computers and recycling packaging. From the customer’s point of view, this is an inefficient nuisance. “But when these vendors and elements are combined into a single touch-point, the unpaid work in consumer’s lives can be reduced dramatically.”
Linking Consumption and Provision
Forge links between consumption and provision. Re-examine all of your relationships with suppliers and distributors: define value; determine how you will create and deliver it; then, design and implement a new lean process that works for your organization. Together with your customers:
Define the purpose of the process – The process comprises both the customer’s and the organization’s purposes. Production processes that do not achieve both objectives won’t survive.

• Design metrics – These will show whether the process is serving both purposes. Assess how well the existing process provides precisely what customers demand, when and where they demand it. Calculate wasted time, and analyze costs in reference
  
  to customers’ standards of what they want to pay.


• Don’t focus on what ought to be – Focus on what is.


• Test each step – Eliminate steps that do not create value. Conduct statistical analysis
  
  examining the ratio of time spent creating value to total process time, the ratio of work that creates value to total work and the ratio of expenditures that create value to total expenditures.

No More Pointless Meetings Summary

No More Pointless Meetings Book Review

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Facilitators choreograph workflow sessions to assure that the group is collaborative, productive and efficient. They are impartial and assume responsibility only for process – not content. They do not join in content discussion. Workflow management facilitators begin each session by asking the group to subscribe to three precepts:

1. “The facilitator accepts responsibility for meeting process.”


2. “The group accepts responsibility for meeting content.”


3. “The facilitator and the group commit to an outstanding workflow session outcome.”

The Four Workflow Sessions

The workflow management system sets up four sessions to deal with problematic issues:

1. “Issues management session” – Uses defined steps to identify and prioritize the main issues that managers and employee teams need to tackle.


2. “Innovation session” – Brainstorms dozens of innovative ways to think about problems, spot new directions or generate ideas.


3. “Problem-solving session” – Establishes an environment conducive to finding specific solutions.


4. “Ongoing planning” – Results in an “action plan” that participants enter in a “planning database” to enable continual strategizing that is based on current input, data and feedback.

The Issues Management Session

The issues management session forms the starting point for all gatherings. Managers together with their teams identify issues affecting their ability to conduct business, situations requiring resolution, trends and opportunities worth developing, or problems facing the team. An issue is “anything that occurs, that should have occurred or that you wish would occur that has relevance to your job or area of responsibility.” The workforce management system refers to urgent matters as “critical issues” to indicate that they demand immediate consideration.

Guidelines for running workflow sessions specify that the group should number around 10 to 12 people, though it can be as many as 20 or as few as two. Sessions may be as short as 20 minutes or as long as several hours. Insert a 10-minute break for every hour of meeting. Participants can sit at a conference table or in any formation the facilitator deems appropriate. Attendees should refrain from using mobile phones. Participants need pens and paper for issue management sessions, which also require three easels equipped with paper pads. These sessions work through a seven-step process:

1. “Laying the groundwork” – Begin each session by describing the difference between content and process. Explain that the facilitator will not participate in content discussions; gain participants’ agreement to respect this process. Use one of the large paper pads to record “information gaps,” unanswered questions that arise during the session. In today’s knowledge-driven economy, continually educating a team is imperative. Fill in all information gaps so participants stay current.


2. “Identify the purpose of the session” – Obtain everyone’s agreement regarding the reason for meeting.


3. “Surface all the issues” – Ask participants to write down as many issues as they can think of in five minutes, with no discussion. Do not limit the issues to their areas of responsibility. Record the issues on a large pad, listing two from each participant.


4. “Narrow the list to critical issues” – Ask each participant to identify his or her top five most critical issues from the list. Compile them on another sheet of large paper.


5. “List the top 10 critical issues” – Break the group into teams and give them five minutes to identify – as a group – their top 10 critical issues from the combined previous lists. Have a representative from each group present its list with a brief explanation for each choice. Rank each issue on the combined list in order of importance until the group winnows the list to the top 10 most critical issues.


6. “Resolve the issues or move them to another session” – Determine which critical issues the group can settle immediately. Resolving an issue requires identifying “next steps,” that is, assigning responsibility and creating a deadline. If the issue is too complex for immediate resolution, decide whether an issue requires a later innovation session or problem-solving session to find a solution. Schedule the appropriate follow-up sessions.


7. “Write the action plan” – Record the group’s conclusions, solutions and agreements in an action plan. This document includes four columns: “tasks/next steps, responsibility, due date and report.”

If you hold a two-person session follow a similar format. One person acts as facilitator while the other discusses content. The two switch roles about halfway through the meeting. You also can hold solo sessions to focus your thinking between workflow management sessions. On your own – acting as both facilitator and participant – formalize your thought process by following the steps for issues management, innovation and problem-solving sessions.

The Innovation Session

This session stimulates creativity to generate new solutions or products, update systems and processes, improve communication, originate strategy, or conceive promotion and marketing ideas. Begin each session with the first steps of every workflow session: explaining content versus process, going over the need to record any information gaps and gaining agreement from participants. Set up three additional easels for the breakout portions of the innovation and problem-solving sessions.

The innovation session unfolds in four stages. In this case, a session dedicated to generating new product ideas serves as an example:

1. “Ideation” – Ask each attendee to write as many product ideas as possible in three minutes. Don’t allow discussion. Record two ideas at a time from each contributor until you have several dozen on the easel. Repeat this exercise until the group is low on ideas.


2. “Building” – Pinpoint methods for making the ideas function and expand on ideas to turn them into concepts. Do not address why a suggestion may not work. Subdivide the group and ask each unit to pick 10 ideas from the list and develop them into viable concepts. After 15 minutes, reassemble the group and have each unit present its 10 concepts. Prohibit any negative commentary.


3. “Evaluation” – The participants whittle down the idea list to those with the most potential and feasibility. Assess each concept individually. The facilitator should prompt the group with numerous questions: Is the idea fully developed? What is its viability? Is it worth an investment of more time? Ask each participant to rank the remaining concepts until you have a top 10 or 20 list.


4. “Action plan” – End the session by creating a plan to move ahead.

“The Problem-Solving Session”

This session focuses the group’s problem-solving abilities on an issue by working through three stages of discussion, “entry points, leverage and questions.” First, to address problems, identify entry points that define the exact nature of the issue under discussion or the problem at hand. Second, discuss leverage to clarify the problem and find the access point to begin working out its resolution. Third, ask the right questions to provide a map toward the solution. Questions have a “leverage-ability quotient”; that is, well-targeted questions lead to accurate and timely solutions.

Like the innovation session, the first two steps in a problem-solving session are ideation and building. After the group isolates the specifics of the problem, take two more steps: In step three, “reframe the problem.” Ask participants to attack the problem in as many ways as they can in five minutes. Use the “what-if exercise” to offer solutions. For example, “What if communication within and between departments was streamlined?” or “What if managers and executives validated and empowered others?” This helps the group find the roots of the problem.

In step four, ask each group member to offer three solutions to display on an easel for everyone to see. If the group agrees that one of the solutions solves the problem, proceed to the action plan. If the group doesn't come to an agreement, in step five, ask participants, “What question do we need to ask ourselves at this time?” Record one response from each person and ask each participant to “write a better question.” Seeking better questions will help make the group more focused and solution-oriented. The facilitator should repeat this exercise as many times as he or she feels is productive. Once the group agrees on the best solution, proceed to the action plan.

“Ongoing Planning”

Annual strategic planning meetings are obsolete. To be relevant, the planning process needs to be timely, ongoing and fluid. Management must build its capacity to respond quickly to new information and to react promptly to changes in the marketplace. Three interconnected forces cultivate effective strategizing:

1. “Innovative collaboration practices” – Put the action plans that workflow management sessions generate into a universal planning database. Assign a planning coordinator to monitor the database.


2. “A robust planning database” – A comprehensive, continually updated planning database helps leaders evaluate productivity, assess companywide communication, analyze workflow proficiency, and identify challenges and opportunities.


3. “Personal workflow planners” – Managers use personal workflow planners as a tool for handling and prioritizing their responsibilities. This allows them to be proactive rather than reactive and replaces the traditional, inefficient to-do list.

Personal workflow planning enables managers – for every issue or task – to consider their goals, strategy, impediments and information gaps. The system lets managers analyze whether their action plans show “the investment of human and other capital in a manner that maximizes the viability” of their projects. When managers implement their solutions, they must answer the question: “Have I done my best and everything ethically possible to ensure success?”

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Why We Buy Summary

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Paco Underhill’s understanding about shoppers is the result of more than 20 years of careful observation and data collection. He approaches it like an anthropologist studying another culture, through participant observation and carefully noting dozens of pieces of behavior.

Why We Buy summary

Underhill’s crew draws a detailed map of the shopping area they are studying. They collect hundreds of hours of observations using banks of video cameras. His individual trackers each follow a single shopper. Like private investigators, they observe and record virtually everything that individual does: where she walks, when she stops, what items she picks up, how long she looks at them, whether she buys or not, and so forth. Typically, researchers list 25 data points per shopper, which means about 2,500 entries for 100 shoppers. The field trackers also do 20-question interviews with shoppers as they leave the store. Then, all of these bits of data are entered into a database and cross-tabulated in various ways to produce results about the buying behavior of different types of shoppers.

It is an amazingly detailed and time-consuming process, but he uses this knowledge to create a better shopping environment. Shoppers have many choices about where and what they are going to buy, both in stores and on the Internet. The more a shopper feels comfortable and enjoys the shopping experience, the more time he or she will spend shopping and the more he or she will buy.

Understanding the Mechanics of Shopping

To understand how and why people buy, it is first important to understand their basic physical and anatomical abilities, tendencies, limitations and needs. These are all considered in designing an effective retail selling environment. Important factors include how people walk, use their hands, read signs and interact with others who shop with them. Many retailers don’t consider these factors. Unwittingly, they make bad choices in how they position products on shelves, place signs, use lighting or otherwise lay out their store and the products in it.

First, think about the design of the entrance space where people come into the shopping environment. Treat this as a transition zone, in which people adjust from the outside light. Scale it to what’s inside the store. Thus, the entry way is not usually a good place to put a display of merchandise or a sign. Don’t try to “accomplish anything important” in this zone. Keep it as small as possible. For example, use it to greet customers and just say hello, or offer a basket, map or coupon.

A second consideration is the way customers use their hands when they shop and how much space they need to shop comfortably. People who feel closed in because an aisle is too narrow or they don’t have a place to put their purchases, will buy less. That’s why displaying less merchandise and having larger aisles may result in more sales, as will offering customers baskets, bags and shopping carts. Placement is critical. It’s better to scatter baskets around the store, so shoppers can get them when they need them, rather than putting them up front. When they first come in, shoppers might not realize how much they want to buy.

As you decide what merchandise to place where, consider the way people move through the store. You want to have a good flow with no obstacles or blind spots. People naturally move towards the right. So place your most important goods at the front of the store and to the right. It is easiest for shoppers to reach for items to the right of where they are standing, so place items accordingly. To push a new brand, stock it to the right of the most popular brand. Shoppers more easily see what’s directly ahead of them. Therefore, ‘end caps,’ which display merchandise at the end of a store aisle, are very effective. Most American stores now have them.

The size, design and placement of signs also makes a big difference. It is not enough to decide if a sign looks good at a sales conference. You have to see how it works in the shopping environment. As a first step, you have to get the shopper’s attention. Offer the information the way people absorb it: a bit at a time, a layer at a time, and in the proper sequence. Otherwise, the information won’t register. If you overload people or confuse them, they will ignore the message. Instead, consider the store as a collection of zones, and map them out for the best placement of signs. If people are passing quickly, you need a large sign with just a few words. If you find a place where they are ready to stop and read to learn more, that’s where you should provide more detailed information.

Whether people shop alone or with others affects shopping behavior, too. People who come with others will buy more if there is a place for the non-shopping person to sit, relax and feel comfortable.

Shopping Demographics

In general, men shop quite differently from women. Traditionally, women have done most of the shopping. They are more organized and take more time when they shop. They are more likely to create lists and carefully evaluate merchandise, such as taking more time to pick out the best fruit in a supermarket. By contrast, men move much faster through a store’s aisles, spend less time looking, and buy more purposefully. Women are more likely to look for and ask questions of store employees. Men tend to prefer to read information or get it from instructional videos or computer screens. They don’t like asking where things are, just like they don’t like to ask for directions when they drive.

Since men are increasingly doing more of the shopping, you can sell more if you design a store to appeal to men as well as women. For example, set up places in the store with a more masculine design. Group products for men. Put male health and grooming products in their own section, rather than mixing them with women’s cosmetics and such.

Conversely, consider recent changes in women’s shopping patterns. Women still are more likely to shop with friends, but many women have less time now because they are busy. They are also buying more traditionally “male” products, such as home building supplies. Yet, they are more interested in how things function than why. Women want to see how equipment will look in a home, not just a display of different parts. That is why Home Depot has become so successful in selling not just hardware, but lifestyles.

Respond to the growing senior market. Use larger type on packages and signs to make them more readable. Have more contrasting colors and brighter stores, so they can more easily see what you are selling.

Consider how to better respond to kids, whether they are your target market or are just tagging along. Kids have become a powerful marketing force. They are especially responsive to the mass media, particularly to licensed TV characters. They are very aware of brand names and status. In turn, their parents are very responsive to what kids like, whether they are shopping for the kids or not. If a store seems unwelcoming to children, the parents are likely to stay away. If the aisles are too narrow for a baby stroller, a customer with a baby probably won’t go down those aisles or shop in that store. Put kids’ merchandise down at their eye level, where they will see it. If you need the parents’ attention for a time, for a more complicated purchase, like a car or bank loan, then find some way to keep their child happy. A restless child can distract his or her parents and disrupt a sale.

Shopping Dynamics

The third key factor in selling more successfully is the art of creating an effective presentation, providing a kind of romance or seduction for the shopper. It is what makes the shopper want to reach for the goods and own them. An underlying force that leads to this response is persuading the shopper to love something, since in the end it’s love that makes the world of retailing go round. The key elements that contribute to shoppers’ love are:

1. Touch: Shoppers should directly experience the material world. This is critical. Almost all unplanned buying is due to the senses — seeing, touching, hearing, smell- ing or tasting — making merchandising often more influential than marketing.
2. Mirrors: These attract shoppers, and help shoppers see themselves in wearable items.
3. Discovery: Seductive hints and enticing smells (such as warm bread baking) add a sense of adventure.
4. Talking: Shoppers experience extra enjoyment when shopping includes sociability.
5. Recognition: People like the feeling of being known and special. It happens when an employee knows a shopper’s name.
6. Bargains: Make a shopper feel that you are offering a good deal.

By contrast, shoppers also tend to dislike certain things strongly. They don’t like having too many mirrors, which make the store feel like a fun house. They dislike lines and become impatient waiting. Shoppers find it frustrating when information about products isn’t available. They are annoyed when products they want are out of stock and when it’s hard to find price tags. Bad service is another big turn-off, whether clerks are rude, slow, uninformed, lazy or otherwise unhelpful. Commonly, when service is bad, shoppers will go elsewhere. As a rule, bad service undoes good merchandise, prices and location almost every time.

Think about how you combine things. When you place complementary products near each other, you may be able to sell more of both. Notice how the Gap sells fragrance and candles or how the Club Monaco clothing store sells cosmetics.

Applying Shopping Principles On-Line

These principles of creating a good shopping experience can also be applied to the Internet and e-commerce. Though only stores can offer physical sensations, immediate gratification and social interaction, the Internet has other advantages. These include a huge selection, convenience, speed and plenty of information. To promote a physical store on the Internet, use it to boost image-building and corporate identification. On the Web, you can provide information about your products and where to get them. You can offer a scaled-down version or complete online version of a store. To make your online site more effective, make it easy to browse. Make it very clear what you can and can’t do. Provide ways to navigate back and forth easily through your site with good directional signs. Make it fun by using attractive graphics and interactive entertainment.

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10 Secrets of Time Management For Salespeople Summary

Why Sales People Need Time Management

Today’s rapid pace saddles any outside or field salesperson with more on-the-job pressure. Customers are more demanding. Voice mail requires more telephone time. You can’t just drop in on customers; you normally need to make an appointment first, requiring still more phone time. You probably have to collect more customer information than ever before for your company’s database. And if you work with a team, as more and more outside salespeople do, that’s another drain on your time.
Thus, to be more effective in sorting through all these demands and choosing activities that will make the most sales and money, you need to manage your time well. Time management will focus you on doing the most important tasks and will help you reduce or eliminate activities that drain your energy. The results: you feel more energized. You have a psychic boost. You get more done more quickly. You have better results.

Research supports these claims. A recent National Society of Sales Training Executives study found that the best superstar salesmen are “obsessed with time management,” because it helped them achieve more and bigger sales.

If you are like the typical field salesperson, you probably like action and being out of the office. But don’t let this emphasis on action block your success. You additionally need to be disciplined, so you think about where you are going and why. This enables you to develop systems and routines to guide you. At the same time, be flexible and adaptable, skills you need to be responsive to your often unpredictable customers. If you encounter a crisis, deal with it. Think about your job when you are away from your customer. Spend the effort to plan and set up systems to use your time more effectively. Determine what works and then do it. The following 10 secrets of time management will help you make the best use of your time:

1. Get grounded, be committed to some deeply held beliefs that give you purpose and direction.
   
2. Think about your actions before you act.
   
3. Think “right”, which means think effectively about the right things.
4. Prioritize your customers and your prospects, so you spend the most time with those who are most productive.
5. Stay in control, which means staying “on top of the flow,” so when changes and uncertainties occur you can best deal with them.
   
6. Get rid of the “gunk.” Stop doing unnecessary tasks.
   
7. Set up systems, so you have a step-by-step way of doing things.
   
8. When you have an effective sales process, stick to it.
   
9. Develop and sustain relationships that help you.
   
10. Find balance in your life.

How to Get Grounded

Getting grounded means being securely anchored by some truths you deeply believe that help guide you on the job every day. The three elements that keep you grounded are:

1. You have a mindset that inspires you to do more, have more and become more than you are here and now. You believe more opportunities exist and you go for them.
   
2. You have a time management strategy to guide your efforts, based on being both efficient and effective. Being effective means doing the right things, so you achieve the best results. Being efficient is doing whatever you do in the least amount of time.
   
3. You have core values that give you a sense of purpose and direction. Your values might include believing in learning, humility, quality, knowledge, integrity and open-mindedness, while seeking a better-than-average profit. To determine your values, create a list of values and choose those that are most important to you. To embrace and hold those values, write a statement committing yourself to them.

Think Before You Leap

Make a habit of thinking before you act. Spend 20% of your time thinking and 80% of your time acting on what you have pondered. Your goal is disciplined action, such as following a planning cycle that combines events and processes. A typical cycle includes:

• A yearly planning retreat, lasting about one to three days.
  
• Four quarterly planning sessions, lasting about half a day to a full day.
  
• A planning session each month, lasting about half a day.
  
• A weekly plan to guide your activities for that week.
  
• Preparation each day for what you will be doing.
  
• Preparation before you make a call (pre-call preparation)
  
• Reflection after you make a call (post-call reflection).

Use planning retreats to set sales goals for your territory, carefully analyze your customers and prospects, and establish your own goals and strategic plans for your most important accounts. Use quarterly planning sessions to review and tune up these decisions and plans. Each month, create a master plan as your “basic operational document.” Make it concrete, one to three pages long, and include monthly goals, goals for key accounts, a learning plan and a weekly territory plan. Plan each week during the preceding week, and take 30 minutes at the end of each day to plan the next. Before a sales call, prepare by setting goals for the meeting. Afterward, reflect on the session, consider what went well and what didn’t.

Think About the Right Stuff

Learn to think about the right things the right way. Master these crucial thinking processes:

• Analyze — Break your job down into its component parts. Start with major tasks, such as dealing with customers, working with prospects, interacting with other employees, writing reports, planning and learning about your products or services. Break these tasks down with concrete criteria. For instance, analyze customers by type, or break down tomorrow’s tasks according to different business areas.

• Prioritize — Focus on your best customers and prospects, so you invest your time and energy for the maximum return.

• Plan — After you analyze and prioritize almost everything you do, create a plan for next week by listing all your possible activities. Then, set priorities for what to do first. Begin this planning process by assessing the situation. Clearly define your goals and objectives. Establish an action plan with implementation steps. Gather the necessary resources or tools such as company literature.

• Image — Visualize the particular situations you expect to engage in, such as making a sales call. Mentally rehearse like an actor, so you can perform well.

• Reflect — Contemplate about something you have already done. Consider what went well and what didn’t and why. Notice problem areas and improve upon them.

Prioritize Your Prospects and Customers

Identify your highest potential customers and prospects, and devote 50% of your time to them, and the remainder to others. To measure potential, examine the ratio of the likelihood of a possible payout versus time invested. Measure potential by two factors:

• Quantified Purchasing Capability (QPC) — This is an objective measure of how much customers could buy from you if they bought everything they could, usually calculated on an annual basis.

• Partnerability — Make a subjective analysis of how likely it is that a prospect or customer will become a partner, perhaps based on the chemistry between you.
  

To do this analysis, get out your calculator and work with the numbers. Derive a rating for both the QPC and partnerability. Use these ratings to divide accounts into A (high- potential), B and C categories, so you can devote half your time to A accounts.

Stay in Control and Get Rid of the Gunk

Unexpected and unpredictable events come with the sales territory. To “stay on top of the flow” and in control, take these steps:

• Continually reassess your priorities and, as needed, reprioritize what you are doing.
  
• Follow the money. When overwhelmed, do the tasks quickly that make the most.
  
• Be prepared to use your downtime. For instance, take work to do while you wait.
  
• Don’t react immediately to events. Choose when to react and how.
• When an opportunity arises, such as an unexpected caller, qualify the value of that opportunity and prioritize it along with everything else.
  
• Say “no” as needed.

Get rid of the “gunk,” the unnecessary work that can clog up your day. For instance, rather than taking time to pick up sales literature at the office, keep some in your car or home. Don’t just drop in on prospects hoping someone can see you. Call ahead. Instead of making small talk with colleagues, spend that time with customers. Delegate whenever possible.

Set Up Systems and Effective Processes

Set up good, reliable systems to spend less time doing a job and to maximize its value. Create effective processes, such as procedures for making appointments and tracking accounts. Establish an account profile form on your computer to enter customer and prospect information. Use tickler files to remind you of necessary tasks.

Apply this systematic approach to setting up and following an effective sales process. For instance, use a laptop with contact manager software to gather and maintain data about customers and prospects. Target your attention. Focus on building relationships, which are at the heart of successful selling. Understand your customers well enough to match your product to each customer. When a customer buys, follow-up to make sure the customer is satisfied, and leverage that satisfaction to offer more opportunities to buy from you.

Nurture Good Relationships and the Good Life

Seek relationships with people who will help you find qualified prospects, such as customers who may be willing to refer you to their colleagues. Get some help making calls for appointments, checking prices or mailing information to leads and customers. Maybe you can even entice your spouse or teenagers to lend a hand.

Finally, try to keep your life in balance, so you work as effectively as possible. Learn to accept personal responsibility, be willing to take risks when they offer a good chance for a favorable return and maintain an attitude of openness.

A Handbook of Employee Reward Management and Practice Summary

Money and Value

Reward management involves designing and implementing strategies, policies and practices to pay people and otherwise reward them. Ideally, rewards should be fair, egalitarian and consistent with your organization’s ideals and purpose. Thus, reward management pays people for their work, but it also sends a message about what the organization values. At the same time, properly managed rewards can encourage a culture of performance, motivate staff, recruit and keep the right people, and form a psychological contract to ensure a positive relationship between your employees and your organization. People feel they are being treated justly when they believe their rewards are commensurate with the value they contribute.

Contemporary reward theory rests upon two concepts:


• Strategic pay – Policies and practices governing pay should flow naturally from the organization’s strategy, and must be a product of its culture, values and objectives.

• New pay – Since reward policies can motivate organizational change, this philosophy holds that compensation should focus on results and should reward behavior that advances the organization’s goals. It says employees should have a voice in determining whether the organization’s reward systems are appropriate.

Reward Management

Reward management is the collection of your organization’s strategies, policies and practices designed to pay people fairly, in accordance with the worth of their contributions and the organization’s values and objectives. Rewards are not exclusively monetary. Any well-considered reward system should include nonfinancial rewards. For example, you can boost your organization’s ability to recruit and keep good people by providing the right work environment and by giving employees opportunities to grow along clear career paths.

Use strategic reward management to determine what your reward system should be and how to establish it. Base your decisions on your organization’s philosophies, beliefs and value judgments about reward. Create explicit reward strategies so you can use them to:

• Show employees the paths they should travel and give them touchstones so they can tell when they have achieved the organization’s goals.

• Ascertain whether money is well spent. Wages constitute the single largest expense in many organizations.

• Ensure that rewards have the desired impact on performance.

• Define links between rewards and other human resource management functions and objectives.

Reward strategy is not static. It always grows and changes as organizations themselves grow and change. Support your evolving reward strategy with a foundation of information gathered by analyzing the current reward system and its results. Use gap analysis to compare goals with attainments and to highlight areas that need special attention. Link your reward strategy to your organization’s documented objectives. Give line managers responsibility for reward management, but have human resources staff develop training and other support to help line managers make the right reward decisions.

Reward Policies

Reward policies address the balance between external competitiveness and internal fairness. Companies may opt as a matter of policy to pay more than the market, the market median or, in some cases, below the market level. Equal pay for equal work should be important in driving your reward policies, if only because legislators in the U.S. and the European community have made such equality a matter of public policy interest. When developing a reward policy consider:

• Which policy issues are most germane to your organization’s culture and values?

• Which policies are most germane to your business objectives and employee needs?

• What policies are possible to implement?

• How much training or preparation do line managers need to implement the policies?

• How will the organization communicate necessary information about the policies?

Your company’s reward policies cannot be static. As the market moves and the organization moves, reward policies should also move. Periodically ask whether policies that were relevant in the past are still relevant and whether any changes are necessary.

Reward Management in Concept and Context

Competitive pressures are the most important external factors that influence your reward policy. Global competition certainly affects reward policy because it drives businesses to be more productive. A corporation that wants world-class status must have world-class people. National and regional competition affects the demand for labor, the fragmentation of the labor market, the structure of local industries, the availability of skills, and other matters that inevitably influence reward management. For example, in an environment of low inflation, pay grows more slowly. Similarly, the increase in temporary employment and the end of society’s job-for-life assumption has driven a more intense emphasis on short-term rewards, while lessening employee emphasis on long-term rewards, such as pension schemes.

Seven economic concepts guide professional thinking about pay:

1. Labor theory of value – Karl Marx wrote that the value of goods and services is proportional to the amount of labor required to make them. Although mainstream economists rejected this labor theory, it still survives as an unspoken assumption in many conventional approaches to job valuation. Such approaches are indifferent to market rates; they address only the content of jobs.

2. Labor market – A labor market may be regional, continental or international. When many buyers chase a limited supply of labor, the price of labor rises; when few buyers are looking and labor is abundant, the price of labor lags. Labor markets may be external or internal.

3. Classical economics – This approach looks at the labor market as a dynamic play of supply and demand in search of equilibrium. Classical economic theory assumes that all other things are equal and that there is a perfect market for labor. While theoretically useful, such assumptions ignore many real-world facts, such as constraints on labor movement.

4. Efficiency wage – This idea suggests that companies will pay above market rates to attract the best people, who presumably will perform at a higher level and make the company more competitive.

5. Human capital – Workers are skill sets rented by employers. The worker’s capital consists of skills and knowledge gained from education, experience and training.

6. Agency theory – Corporations separate ownership and management. Agency theory, therefore, seeks to align incentives with desired behaviors. Critics of agency theory say that its carrot-and-stick approach implies mistrust.

7. Effort bargain – This concept suggests that managers must offer certain incentives and rewards to get a certain level of effort from the workforce. Thus, it says, managers must determine what a particular set of rewards will buy in terms of effort, as well as in terms of hours worked.

Organizations – at least, major organizations – have formal structures that govern pay and jobs. These formal structures may begin at the highest level with directors and officers, and stretch all the way down to the shop floor. Job evaluations often determine what an individual job is worth to the organization, based on the job’s contribution to overall objectives. But market forces almost always play an important part in decisions about individual rewards. Your company’s objective must be to pay people according to their contributions, but the company’s financial position determines what rewards it can and cannot afford to offer.

Reward and Motivation

One of the goals of reward management is motivation. Your company’s reward system should include extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards help you recruit and keep employees and may also help encourage additional effort. But in the long term, nonfinancial rewards such as autonomy, the inherent satisfaction of the work and individual achievement, may be more important than pay. Though it is not a financial reward, recognition can be an important psychological award. Goals also motivate people. In fact, people clearly perform at a higher level when they are attempting to reach stretch goals and when their managers provide feedback.

Make your job evaluation schemes analytical, appropriate, comprehensive, transparent and nondiscriminatory (that is, they should meet the standard of equal pay for equal work). Job evaluation is distinct from role evaluation. A job is a discrete group of tasks, but a role includes both the behaviors and the results expected from the behaviors. Role analysis is complex and difficult, and may rely heavily on opinion and interpretation. Organizations establish pay structures and grade structures to communicate information about opportunities and compensation based on their analysis of jobs and roles.

In addition to formal pay structures, many organizations also offer contingent pay, which makes it clear to employees what the organization really values and will pay to attain. Many organizations consider contingent pay a powerful motivator, but strong arguments exist against it. Critics target the questionable motivational effect of contingent pay, the slippery definition of success and the fact that individuals respond differently to contingent pay. Given the evidence on both sides of the debate, no blanket answer covers the advisability of contingent pay. Given that its benefits are uncertain, most companies should consider relying more on nonfinancial motivators. However, if your company decides to provide contingent pay, ensure that the standards are fair and equitable, and that the system allows people to influence their rewards by behaving differently or by developing new skills. The reward always should have a close relationship to achievement. Many of the criticisms of individual contingent pay also apply to team pay. In fact, many organizations have decided that the disadvantages of team pay outweigh its merits.

Nonfinancial Rewards

One of the most important nonfinancial rewards is the opportunity to learn. While a job itself may be an important learning experience, organizations also offer separate specialized training programs that focus on skill development. Often, the availability of training is a major factor in an employee’s decision to stay with a job or to leave.

Performance management can enhance your relationships with your employees, especially if managers use feedback and performance reviews to clarify what they want. The most important issue in performance management is getting the backing of upper level executives and ensuring that managers conduct the right kind of reviews at the right time. Ensuring that managers have the performance management skills they need to make a review program succeed requires a fairly substantial investment in training.

A reward system involves much more than simply paying what the market will bear. Rewards have important psychological and motivational dimensions that are not always intuitively obvious. Moreover, certain groups (such as directors and officers, or even expatriates) need specialized reward treatment. Reward system administration will often be the purview of the human resources staff, but actual decisions about who gets what rewards belong increasingly, and rightly, to line managers. These complexities suggest that reward management needs to be an organization-wide initiative, and that human resources staff members need to work closely with line managers to be sure that rewards align with the organization’s strategy and values.

101 Tips for Telecommuters Summary

Telecommuting

Telecommuting may save you from a long, frustrating commute every morning and eve- ning. It may give you greater flexibility to spend your time with your family. Your work attire may even be soft slippers and an old housecoat. Telecommuting has plenty of advantages; still, it is not for everyone. You will probably get lonely and miss socializing with colleagues. You may lose your motivation and your focus. Or your presence at home may create family difficulties and tensions rather than bring you closer together. You might use up all that saved commuting time by working even more hours. You may even want to hurl your computer out the window when it freezes or crashes in the middle of an important project.

Self-assessment

Succeeding as a telecommuter involves certain skills and ways of thinking. Consider whether it fits your lifestyle and goals. Evaluate the benefits, obstacles, and challenges you would face. Think through your personal preferences, your home office environ- ment, your economic goals, and your family support system. Ask yourself how you work, whether you need coworkers around you, how disciplined you are, what skills you bring to a telecommuting situation, and whether telecommuting can fulfill your financial goals and needs.

Your phone keeps ringing, your child keeps knocking on the door, and your neighbor has dropped by for a chat. All the distractions of a home office can cause you to lose focus on your daily routine, your work, and your life. To stay focused, make a plan for your life. Write down the answers to these questions: “What things are most important to you in life?” What are your core values?” “What do you want to achieve in your lifetime?”

To focus on your work, create a job plan that includes your mission statement. Keep your customers and stakeholders in mind. Elucidate five results you plan to achieve, and a way to measure them. For daily planning, make “to do” lists that includes: your top work priorities for the day, specific accomplishments for the next day, actions you must take to achieve them, and a reward for yourself when you do accomplish them.

Avoid Wasting Time

At a traditional office, you tend to put all your less important chores and distractions on the back burner in favor of other, more important goals. When you work at home, these routine chores, time wasters, and distractions assume more importance. These time eaters include such things as laundry, errands, another round of computer solitaire, the morning paper, coffee, a chat with your neighbor, Internet surfing, and television.

Promise yourself to avoid these time wasters and focus on a productive day. Write down the major time wasters you engage in daily, so you identify them. Work on omitting, or at least managing, two of these this week. Use a symbol or key word to remind yourself of a goal, or post a reminder near your area of temptation, for example, the refrigerator.

Get Organized

A clean, organized workspace is essential to an office that runs smoothly. You need a system for keeping things tidy. Look around your office and move the stuff you don’t need, including files you haven’t used in more than a month. Take them off your desk. Clear out your desk drawers. Rearrange storage spaces so you can use them more effi- ciently. Do the work you need to do in order to organize yourself better.

A daily structured routine is one of the keys to successful telecommuting. Carry a micro- cassette recorder or put notepads and pens wherever you might be, so you can record your thoughts and ideas. Put a pad and pencil in your purse or briefcase, by the phone, in your car, on your desk, and beside your bed. Try a waterproof board in your shower. Make a habit of gathering your notes and using them in your calendar or planning system.

Avoid Isolation

Isolation is a major problem for telecommuters, even those who enjoy working on their own. Stay connected with your colleagues, as well as the rest of the world, to avoid isola- tion. You can do this several ways:
• Use all the available modes of communication to keep in touch.
• Schedule regular meetings to keep personal contacts.
• Join professional trade organizations to keep up-to-date on your industry.
• Take classes and seminars to meet people and update your skills.
• Volunteer. You’ll feel good and you’ll stay connected with your community.

Keep Track of Your Expenses

If your employer does not furnish a company expense log or form, you will need to create a system for recording your expenses. Be sure to:
• Keep consistent records, whether computerized or paper-based.
• File daily receipts for tax deductible or reimbursable expenses.
• Log your car mileage.

Family Time and Other Considerations

The common myth about telecommuting is that if you work at home, you will have more time to spend with your family. This is not always the case. You will save commuting time and you will have more flexibility, but if you take on child care or eldercare as well as the demands of your home office, you are bound to burn yourself out. Combining your work and home life is a challenging balancing act that requires dedication and hard work. However, you can adopt some strategies that will make it a little easier.

1) Work with your family – Tell your family you are setting aside certain times for work and will be available at other times, and for emergencies. Tell them why your work is important, and what you need and expect from them. Ask about their concerns and feelings, and listen to what they need from you. Agree to a compromise that will make you all happy.

2) Minimize distractions – Others can distract you, but you can also distract yourself. Separate your office space from your bedroom, so work does not invade your sense of personal space. Do not put your office in a high-traffic area where you will be constantly interrupted. Make clear rules about interruptions. If a family member constantly interrupts you, have a talk and clear up the problem right away.

3) Minimize stress – You will feel stress when you are under deadlines, if you feel isolated or disorganized, or if you are bombarded with demands from all directions. Don’t take on too much. Delegate chores. Deal with conflict right away. Talk openly, and listen.

4) Provide for the kids – If you keep your children home with you, make important phone calls during naps or when they are not in the room. Keep toys and games handy in a box in your office, which should be childproofed. Give them a desk for activities, or even a VCR for movies. Talk with them openly about what you do. Con- sider child care issues, and ensure that your children have appropriate care. See if affordable child care is available.

5) Relate to your team – It is important to maintain a sense of trust, integrity, reliability, and consistency in your working relationships. Be honest and forthright in all you do. Because e-mail and voice mail messages can be misinterpreted, be careful with sar- casm and joking in your communications. To maintain people’s confidence in what they tell you, refrain from gossip. Find at least three ways to show that you are reli- able. Pay attention to what people tell you about your performance or your interactions with other people.

6) Keep in touch with your colleagues – Because everyone is so busy, people may not take the initiative to keep in touch. Take the responsibility of initiating that contact. Keep your manager up-to-date on your activities. Immediately communicate any concerns or questions. Get to know your co-workers and stay in touch with them.

You and your co-workers are interdependent. Identify which people have helped you in the past. Recognize and thank them for their effort in an appropriate way. Ensure you are accessible by phone and e-mail. Get a second phone line, return calls promptly, and use call forwarding. Keep informed through your business contacts. Remember birthdays and acknowledge people’s successes.

7) Work with your external partners – While you may feel isolated at times, you are certainly not alone. Besides your family and co-workers, you have another network of people. In your home office, you may need the services of an accountant, office manager, printer, researcher, public relations/marketing consultant, graphic designer, equipment technician, or administrative assistant. You will need to negotiate the details of a contracting agreement with your on-line service provider. Get it all in writing, including who will do the work, exactly what product or service is to be provided, the time it will take, how and when payment will be made, and what performance incentives or penalties are in place.

8) Technology tips – Technology changes so quickly, and so many gadgets and gizmos are available that you may become overwhelmed by all your choices. To make choosing easier, narrow your choices down by carefully deciding your specific needs and requirements. Follow this process to make decision making easier:

• Decide on your specific requirements.
• Make a “spec sheet” for the item you need. Think about how much you will use it, how it will work with the technology you already have, and what constraints may exist.
• Research the options. Discuss your specific requirements with a knowledgeable sales rep. Find out what is working for others in your field.
• Test your options. Try out the equipment in the store.
• Find out if you can conduct a trial run of the equipment that you are considering, with the option to return it if performance is unsatisfactory.

Implementation
If you are thinking about becoming a telecommuter or just starting out, decide the steps you need to take to make the transition. Note: The book contains work- book materials for making this assessment.] If you are already a telecommuter, assess your own practices and highlight areas you need to work on or improve. Focus and sharpen your skills as a telecommuter. Run through a telecommuter’s checklist that includes:

• Your potential for telecommuting success.
• A checklist for negotiating with your employer. Your agreement should cover terms and conditions, expectations, and plans for communications and equipment.
• Family agreements.
• Office location and layout.
• Equipment, furniture, supplies, and technological resources.

The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership Summary

The contrarian leader thinks differently. While others see black and white, contrarians maintain intellectual independence and see many different shades between the extremes. Leaders who can conceptualize a range of ideas are more creative and intellectually open. What is the essence of “thinking gray?” Avoid forming an opinion until you’ve heard all pertinent facts and views, or until circumstances force you to form an opinion to move forward. Binary thinking, which is “black and white,” can lead to disaster because:

• You want to stay open-minded — Once leaders form opinions, their minds often close to new facts and information.
• You want to be decisive — The leader who forms an opinion yet remains open- minded will flip-flop, believing whatever case has been presented most recently.
• You want to think for yourself — People tend to believe whatever is strongly believed by other people. “Thinking gray” is the best defense against this herd instinct.

So, should you employ “gray-think” as a leader in all situations? Of course not. In fact, in most circumstances, it might be counterproductive. You could drive yourself crazy “thinking gray” about each of life’s routine decisions, but the deepest dilemmas demand it. A leader’s vision is important, but the ability to “think free” and to consider a range of ideas may be just as pivotal. For example, the leader must be able to envision how different organizational structures and combinations will affect a company’s development. You can be a leader without being terribly creative if you are able to nurture free thinking among your associates and are willing to implement their ideas.


Artful Listening

Most people think that what they have to say is more important than what they have to hear, and that’s why people are often lousy listeners. Contrarian leaders listen first and talk second. They genuinely want to hear different viewpoints and receive new data.


Machiavelli once observed, “Minds are of three kinds. One is capable of thinking for itself, another is able to understand the thinking of others and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent and the third is worthless.” True leaders must be able to think for themselves and understand others’ thinking. That requires listening, the key to the contrarian leader’s intellectual independence. Listening enables leaders to “see double” — both through their own eyes and through those of their followers. The leader is never immobilized when confronted by conflicting points of view, and develops an ability to see two viewpoints simultaneously.

The leader’s inner circle should be based on confidence and awareness. Colleagues should feel free to constructively, candidly criticize the leader’s direction. However, this requires real trust between the parties, a level of trust that often takes years to develop.

To turn listening into an art, go beyond passive listening. You must be genuinely, intensely interested in what someone else is saying. Deliberately draw out the other person and seek additional details. Paraphrasing and active listening can help define the terms of the discussion. The leader who “thinks gray” must also learn to “listen gray.” That means listening to all types of input — anecdotes, briefings, complaints and puffery — without drawing any immediate conclusions or offering a definite response. Knowing when to stop listening is another rarely recognized component of artful listening. At some point, the leader must make a decision and take action. Taking the time to listen carefully at the beginning, however, can save a lot of wasted time at the end.

“Open communication with structured decision making” is one way to achieve a higher level of clear communication in a bureaucracy. Under this model, anyone at any level is free to communicate problems, opinions and concerns to anyone at any other level in the organization. If the janitor wants to address an issue with the CEO, that is permissible and, perhaps, even encouraged. However, the flip side of open communication is structure. That means that commitments, expenditures and decisions are made strictly through the operational hierarchy. This opens a free flow of information to the leader, but it avoids undermining the authority of subordinate managers.

Contrarian Authority Takes Its Time

When someone takes over an organization’s leadership, conventional thinking is that the new leader should seize the reins as quickly as possible. While this may be necessary during a crisis, the new leader really should have a few months to observe the organization before actually assuming control. CEOs who rush in to fix problems they do not fully understand risk making major blunders at a critical time.

Of Consultants, Saviors and Charlatans

Where would today’s leaders be without the gaggle of experts — consultants, analysts, attorneys and technicians — who tell them what to do? Just remember, you rarely hear about all the CEOs who stumbled because they listened to the wrong advice. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Every profession is a conspiracy against the public.” The key to dealing with experts is to know your goals precisely.

If you feel any uncertainty, your views and direction will probably be subordinated to those of someone with greater expertise — even if you’re right. Thus, you must be sufficiently familiar with technological fields within your organization.

For example, the way a leader handles lawyers is particularly important. Considering that businesses must function in a world where a woman in New Mexico won $2.7 million (later reduced to $600,000) for burning herself with a cup of hot coffee from McDonald’s, the attorney plays an important role in any enterprise. The job of knowing when you’re on safe ground and when you’re not is complicated by constant changes in the law and its interpretations. However, if any expert, including an attorney, says that a given matter is so complex that it is beyond explication to a layperson, a contrarian leader becomes immediately suspicious. Perhaps the expert does not understand the issue well enough to explain it. While experts may be necessary, the leader should not kowtow to every bit of their advice.

Contrary Reading Habits

Don’t get so caught up in current events that you overlook the timeless classics, the “super texts,” such as Machiavelli’s The Prince or Homer’s Odyssey. Authors whose influence has stretched across the centuries are very rare. They offer not so much timeless truths about leaders, as timeless truths about the nature of human beings. The notion that we are superior or even substantially different from our forebears is problematic. If The New York Times does not shed light on your circumstances, perhaps a return to the classics will help. One drawback of the modern media is that you may allow gatekeepers to make decisions for you. If newspapers are the first rough draft of history, the implication is that some events of historical significance are being roughly handled. A pretty good chance exists that the stories that are not included in the newspaper — such as those which document subtle but powerful social undercurrents — are often more important than the stories that are included. To cultivate a contrarian’s healthy attitude toward the press:

• Read newspapers primarily for entertainment.
• When the press attacks someone, assume that important facts in the person’s defense have been omitted.
• Always suspect herd mentality.
• Realize that newspapers pay little attention to the subtle gray shades of reality.
• Know that even the best newspapers occasionally get the facts wrong.

Select your reading material carefully because leaders are heavily influenced by what they read.

Contrarian Decision-Making

“To decide or not to decide?” can be the contrarian leader’s most important question. While the clean-desk mentality that demands dealing with each issue as soon as it arises may work well for bureaucrats and managers, it’s lousy advice for leaders. The contrarian rules say that when feasible, you should:

• Wait to decide — Never make a decision today that can be reasonably delayed until tomorrow. That’s not to say that you should procrastinate on important decisions. The key word, of course, is “reasonably.” Indeed, if you clear your decks for all but the most crucial decisions, you will be able to focus on those. Harry Truman always used to ask, “How much time do I have?” He understood that the timetable often influenced his decision-making. Beware, however, because you face a pitfall: the danger of waiting too long.
• Delegate decision making — Never make a decision you could delegate reasonably to staff. Military leaders follow this practice with the understanding that they retain responsibility for the tasks and decisions that they delegate to subordinates. Delegation accomplishes two goals: it frees up the leader’s time and it helps develop subordinates’ decision-making skills. It is no coincidence that dictatorial managers rarely leave able lieutenants who can replace them.

Proactive Leadership

Part of the fine art of leadership is creating circumstances that require you to take a course of action. Leaders trying to manage unwieldy bureaucracies often use this technique. A CEO, for example, may declare his intention of reducing the number of senior officers by 30% within two months without announcing who is likely to go. The leader of a nonprofit may decide it’s time for a whole new mission statement, assigning its creation to a vice president or advisory board. This can be a way to get an organization to respond without attacking it directly.

Occasionally a leader feels the need to appear to be doing something about a high profile situation without actually taking substantial action. On such occasions, all a leader can do is reassure people. Occasionally, a leader’s role includes acting against subordinates’ advice, even if they are unanimous. You must do this properly to avoid offending your most trusted assistants.

Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, had a few suggestions for today’s leaders:

• Remember that no policy is without risk.
• A leader is justified in resorting to almost any action to prevent civil chaos or foreign domination.
• If you do a man a slight injury, he will seek revenge; if you crush him, he cannot.
• Never compromise with or submit to evil to avoid war.
• Luck plays the biggest role and fortune favors the bold.
• In a newly conquered territory, commit harsh acts all at once, but distribute mercies and benefits gradually over time.
• The leader’s main job is to protect from foreign invasion.

A Hill to Die On

Always know which hill you’re willing to die on — that means knowing where your ultimate core beliefs reside, and what you’re willing to do to defend them. Without that clarity, you will lack ethical leadership and people will hesitate to follow you. Work hard on behalf of the people who work for you. Make sure that your direct reports have direct access to you. And be willing to put forth a concerted effort to remove the obstacles they face every day.