This is the final installment of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives in 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #5: If it’s broken, fix it now.

Some years ago, I was working with a company that decided to make a $90M, multi-year investment in advanced automation and information technologies for producing specialty pipes and cables.  Several months into the planning process, it became clear that the entire program was at risk of failing before the first capital project was even launched.  It wasn’t a technical problem — or even a financial problem.  The problem was a management problem — at the highest level of the organization.  The Vice President of Manufacturing simply would not or could not change his approach to managing the manufacturing process on a day-to-day basis — even though he had endorsed the strategy before the company’s Board of Directors.

Of course, this should not have come as a huge surprise to the rest of the management team.  The VP of Manufacturing had been in his position longer than any of the other executives, including the President of the company.  He had established a reputation for being very knowledgeable — but also very inflexible — long before this change in strategic direction.  Unfortunately for the President, all of the resources that were required to implement the strategy “belonged” to the VP of Manufacturing.    Without the full commitment of the VP of Manufacturing, the new strategy was destined to fail before it even started.

These imbalances in organizational power are not uncommon, whether they are the result of one very strong individual leader, a cultural history of giving one part of the organization more power than the others, or simply the nature of the industry itself.  Some companies, such as those in the CPG industry, are dominated by the product development, marketing, or sales organizations.  Other companies, like those in the high tech industry or the construction industry, are dominated by the engineering team.   Not only is this normal, it may be perfectly appropriate to the overall business strategy.  The problem arises when the dominant organization or individual is not aligned with the overall strategy.  Equally challenging is having a support group, like finance procurement, legal, or IT, suddenly emerge as a controlling force in the organization.

Theses imbalances can eventually lead to outright hostility within the organization, with power struggles, infighting, and dissention becoming the rule rather than the exception.  And the longer it lasts, the more it will cost you in time, energy, performance, and profitability.

Changing this dynamic may mean making significant changes to the organization.

Break down the functional barriers

In larger organizations, functional “silos” can be a major impediment to a change initiative.  One of the classic battles is between sales and operations.  The sales organization is tuned to the marketplace and seeks to be able to meet the rapidly changing demands of the customer. Manufacturing or operations is tuned to controlling costs and seeks to reduce the number of changes, options, or variations in order to be more efficient.  In a healthy, well-managed company, both of these organizations will be aligned with the overall strategy, communications will be frequent and constructive, and there will be a healthy mutual-respect between the organizations. So, what can you do to create this healthy, well-managed collaboration between your sales and operations teams?

First, if you don’t already have a sales and operations planning (S&OP) process that includes both sales and operations participation, you need to create one.  Manufacturing needs to be at the table when new products or promotions are discussed, so that they can raise any issues before it reaches the factory floor.  Conversely, sales should be at the table when capital budget priorities are set, so that the planned spending aligns with customer needs.

Another great strategy for improving communications — and mutual respect – between organizations is to make sure that your employee development program rotates your top talent through these different organizations.  Sales and product leadership should “walk in the shoes” of operations at least once during their early careers.  And operations leadership should be exposed to direct customer interaction at least once, as well.  The more well-rounded the experience of your team, the more likely they will be able to collaborate and communicate for the benefit of the entire organization.

A more dramatic approach is to completely restructure the organization.  One tactic is to break the larger organization down into more self-contained business units.  For example, instead of having all of your manufacturing facilities managed as one large cost center, align the facilities with various product groups.  And, while you are it, reshuffle the management deck to create some fresh thinking.  While this may create some disruption in the short term, the longer term benefit of breaking down the old silos to promote collaboration should more than offset the short-term costs.

Bring in New Blood

When reshuffling your existing managers does not do the trick, you may want to consider bringing in some new talent.  This is particularly effective when you are launching a major change initiative, such as lean manufacturing or an ERP implementation.  And, I am not talking about just hiring or training a few subject matter experts, which is what most organizations will do.  I am talking about changing some of the key leadership in the organization, as well, so that the new skills and new way of thinking about the business are fully integrated with day-to-day decision making.

Eliminate the Dead Wood

In order to make room for the new blood, you may also need to eliminate some folks from the organizational mix.  Resistance to change, either active or passive, can occur at any level in the organization.  When it occurs at the top, such as the case of the VP of Manufacturing I discussed in the beginning of the article, removal of that person can send a very strong message to the entire organization that you are serious about your vision.  But even when it occurs at the bottom of the organization, it is equally important to act quickly.  If people see that they do not have to change their behaviors in order to keep their jobs, they simply won’t change.  What started off as one or two people who did not want to change, soon becomes dozens or hundreds.  In short, if people are not willing to change, then you need to change out the people.

The Role of Training

Before someone complains that I have not discussed the importance of training as part of a transformation process, let me say this.  Training is essential, whether you make any of these other organizational or management changes.  You need to provide employees with the information and tools they need to embrace any new process, be it lean manufacturing, quality management, or using a new ERP system.  But unless you quickly deal with the dysfunctional parts of your organization, much of the value of the initial training will be lost as the transformation slows down.  You may find yourself repeating the initial training multiple times, rather than moving to more advanced skills as your organization begins to transform.  And no amount of training will “fix” the employees or managers who are never going to get on board with the transformation.

Making the Tough Decisions

To finish my opening story, the President of the company was faced with a difficult choice.  He could keep the VP of Manufacturing and try to convince him to get on board.  He could bring someone in over the VP of Manufacturing to provide the leadership.  He could cut the VP of Manufacturing loose after 35 years with the company.  Or, he could abandon the new vision and save $90 million.  For him, the choice was simple.  The VP of Manufacturing, despite his years of service, simply did not provide enough value to outweigh the benefits of an empowered operations team, working together to position the company for the next century.  He was gone within the week and the transformation began to move forward again.

Dealing with the organizational change process is the single most challenging part of any transformation.  Anyone can define a new strategy, make a big announcement, and invest in the systems and training that support a new initiative.  But only the best managers and leaders are able to create a new reality by making the tough organizational decisions before it is too late.

Resolve to make 2013 your “Year of Action” and if it is broken, fix it now!

This is Part 5 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives in 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #4: Finish What You Start.

When you fail to finish, you start to fail

I was visiting my mother over the holidays and we were looking at an afghan that I crocheted for her when I was in college.  As she was remarking once again on how beautiful it was and how much work went into it, I felt compelled to tell her the truth.  The actual crocheting time was only a few weeks.  The total project time, however, was nearly four years.  My original plan was to give her the afghan for Christmas my freshman year in college.  But, I did not finish it in time.  So, I set it aside, thinking it would make a great mother’s day gift.  And then it was a birthday gift.  And then it was Christmas again.  And so on.  Until I finally gave it to her for Christmas my senior year in college.

And while I am confessing, I will confess one more thing.  It is the only afghan project I ever finished.  I currently have three other projects in various stages of completion — at least two of them more than 10 years in the making.

I am sure that most of us have unfinished projects at home.  Maybe its the baby book you started for your first child.  Perhaps it is the old Chevy parked in your yard that you intend to restore one day.  Or maybe its the oil painting you started in a summer art class, that now sits in your closet gathering dust.  I know people who build new houses with the intention of finishing the trim themselves, yet the trim remains undone in the basement or utility room.  And nearly all of us have a list of “honey do” projects that “honey don’t” get done.

And we don’t really sweat these unfinished projects.  After all, the unfinished baby book is far less important than raising your son or daughter to be a good man or woman.  Someone else will buy your old Chevy as a project car. Most visitors to your home are unlikely to notice the missing trim in your utility room.  And, unless the project on the “honey do” list involves a working toilet, most of theses projects are simply not “mission critical” for your family.

But unfinished transformation initiatives in your business are another matter entirely. When you fail to finish, you are failing your customers, you are failing your employees, and you are failing your shareholders and owners.  And when you fail to finish several transformations in succession, your employees begin to see every new initiative as the “transformation du jour”.  They will happily play lip service to it in public and then equally happily ignore it in practice. Not only do you not gain the performance improvements that you intended with the transformation, you may soon find yourself falling further behind your competitors who have been more successful at finishing what they start.

Here are some things you can do to breathe new life in your important transformation initiatives in 2013.

Renew Your Commitment

If making the transformation is important to you and your business, then people need to see and hear you make it important.  If it has been more than a year since you started down the path of transformation, it may be time to renew your commitment.  One great way to communicate to your employees that you are still committed to the change process is to hold a 2013 Kick-Off event to celebrate successes and recognize the champions of the transformation.

Do something fun, like have an ice cream social in the cafeteria with you and your management team dishing up the ice cream.  Hand out promotional items that emphasize the message of the transformation, such as a coffee mug.  Or, if money is an issue, create certificates hand-signed by you to present to employees who have shown real leadership in moving the transformation forward.  To be honest,  it isn’t so important what you do — as long as you personally and publicly participate in whatever the activity might be.

Actively Monitor the Progress

One of the biggest contributors to stalled transformations is that they are “delegated” away from the executive suite, sometimes two or three levels below the executive management team.  If you want your transformation to be successful, you need to have an executive champion who sits at the table on an equal basis with the rest of the executive management team. In the most successful transformations, the CEO or President serves as the executive champion.

Once you have a suitable champion, you also need to include the transformation as an agenda topic at every management or staff meeting.  While it is important to have separate, formal progress reviews on a periodic basis, there is no substitute for sustaining an ongoing conversation about the progress of the transformation.  And the conversation needs to be very open and honest.  Encourage your managers to report both successes and failures.  Talk about the barriers that stand in the way of achieving your vision.  And work together to come up with solutions to get things moving forward again.

Finally, one of the most powerful ways for an executive to demonstrate  his or her commitment to the change process is to engage your employees in informal discussions by simply walking around and talking about it every day.  But instead of asking the usual, general question “how are things going”, ask a very specific question about the transformation process.  Are they seeing any improvements?  Are their ideas being heard?  What can be done to make it more effective?  The first few times, you may be deafened by the silence.  But once you make this part of your daily routine, you will open up a constructive dialogue that can help you and your management team keep the transformation moving forward.

Hold People Accountable

A few years ago, I worked with a company that had made a significant investment in developing an information system that would track and report overall equipment efficiency for every production line.  Two years after the system was installed, I visited one of the plants to see if the solution had actually resulted in improved efficiencies.  Sadly, it had not.  Why?  It turns out that overall equipment efficiency was not one of the metrics used to measure the performance of the plants or the plant managers.  Duh!

Every transformation initiative is justified on the basis of some kind of improvement in your organization’s performance.  A lean manufacturing initiative should result in reduced costs or more throughput.  A customer service initiative should result in improved customer satisfaction ratings or measures.  A quality improvement initiative should result in fewer rejects, repairs, and returns.  The fastest way to drive these initiatives forward is to measure the changes in performance and hold people accountable for the results.

Take a look at the performance measures you use for your managers and employees.  Are the measures you are using tied to the company you want to be after the transformation?  Or are they tied to the company you have been, reinforcing old and unproductive behaviors?  If the latter, then make 2013 the year that you bring your performance measures in line with your vision.  And if changing performance measures doesn’t change the behaviors of your managers and employees — then maybe it is time to change the people and replace them with people who are on board with the transformation vision.

Find a New Way to “Finish”

Transformation initiatives often take several years to move through all the stages from initiation to complete transformation.  And they seldom look exactly like the original vision when they are complete.  When a transformation process stalls out, it may be necessary to change some of the elements to make it work better for your organization.  If formal process mapping is too sophisticated or detailed for your organization to embrace, develop a more practical approach that your employees will use.  If you started off collecting so much data your employees no longer have time to look at any of it, then simplify your approach and focus on the top two or three metrics.

Remember my afghan story?  In fact, it took me so long to get around to “finishing” it, I was  unable to match the yellow yarn that I was using when I started the project.  What my mother always thought was a carefully planned use of blue, white, and yellows, was really the fortunate accident of having to adjust my plan in order to finish the afghan.  While different from my original vision, the result was actually more creative and more beautiful.

By finishing what you started in your transformation initiative, I am betting you will be pleasantly surprised at how much better and more successful your organization has become than you originally envisioned.

This is Part 4 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives in 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #3: Treat your employees with more respect in 2013.

Why Employees Deserve Our Respect

A very close friend of mine works for a large, well-known and well-respected food manufacturer.  The company pays quite well, has a good benefits package, and would generally be considered a great place to work. And right on their website, they state their vision that employees who feel valued are more likely to be fully engaged in our success.

Except my friend happens to work for the “boss from hell”.  You know the kind I am talking about.  He’s the one who belittles your ideas for improvements — and then one week later presents them as his own ideas.  He’s the one who is very quick to criticize, even when you have nothing to do with the problem, and very slow to praise, even when you are the one who saved the day.  And he’s the one who won’t approve your vacation requests because you are “too valuable” to be allowed to take time off.

All of these behaviors are not only disrespectful, they are bordering on abusive. And they certainly don’t represent a sense of “valuing” employees.

Employees who do not feel valued are less likely to put 100% of themselves into the job.  They make mistakes.  They have accidents. They arrive late and they leave early. They are surly to their co-workers — and to customers.   And, ultimately, they impact your bottom line by raising your costs and damaging your company’s reputation.  Yes, there is the occasional “bad actor”  - the employee who will do all these things even with the best boss in the world.  But if you have a lot of these “bad actors” in your company, I will submit that you have a more serious and systemic management problem.

While customers are our reason for being, employees are the reason we continue to exist and to grow.  They are the ones who interact with our customers through sales and customer service activities.  They are the ones who interact with our suppliers, through purchasing and finance.  They are the ones who have to work together to produce our products or deliver our services.  In short, unless you are a one-person company, you need your employees to be successful.

Without productive and engaged employees, we cannot provide our customers with the best products and services at a fair price. But it takes more than a good pay scale, decent benefits, and some nicely worded sentiments on the company’s web page.  It takes the heart felt commitment of every executive, manager, supervisor, and team leader in the company to provide the leadership that these valuable resources deserve.

So what can you do in 2013 to treat your employees with more respect?

Complete performance reviews on time — and with purpose.

Here is a simple “True or False” question to ask yourself.

Performance management is the single most important activity that any supervisor or manager should do.

If you answered “True”, you can skip this rest of this section.  You are already among the few leaders who understand the true importance of effectively and purposefully managing the performance of your people. But if you thought of even one thing that you think is more important and answered “False”, read on.

As a consultant, educator, and business development professional, I have had the opportunity to learn how organizations of all sizes approach managing the performance of their employees.  One of the sad truths I have learned is that employees nearly always place a higher value on the performance review than their supervisors and managers.  Some of the problems employees report include:

• Reviews are not completed on time, if at all.  Smaller organizations are particularly prone to this.  I have worked with some companies where employees have not received a performance review for  years.
• Reviews are arbitrary and vague. Employees in companies of all sizes frequently complain that their supervisors do not provide them with feedback that is specific and actionable.  As a result, employees do not know what they need to do to improve their performance.
• Reviews contain big surprises.  Employees frequently report that they received no feedback or coaching during the year, only to be blindsided during the annual review with major performance deficiencies.

For their part, managers and supervisors also report frustration with the performance review process.  They may view the annual performance review as an administrative task that takes time away from “more important” work.  They are frustrated by the paperwork.  They have not been trained to complete performance reviews properly or conduct face-to-face performance reviews.  They are ill-prepared to provide coaching and counseling to employees to help them improve performance on an ongoing basis.

If any of these observations sound like they came from your employees or management team, then 2013 might be the year to tackle your performance management system.  Take a look at whether your performance review process is designed to develop the behaviors you need to achieve your vision.  Then provide your entire team with the tools and training they need to successfully manage the performance of your employees.

Make training and development a priority.

One of the objectives of any good performance management system should be to identify skills and knowledge that an employee needs to be more successful in their job and advance in their careers.  Performance review forms usually contain a section for supervisors to list up to three training or development activities for each employee.  Yet, only the best managed companies actually use this information to prepare consolidated training plans and budgets for the coming year.  Instead, most companies leave it up to the employee and their supervisor to find — and fund — the specific training.

So how can a company make training and development a priority?  Certainly, setting up a training budget — and protecting it — is an important first step.  But instead of treating training as a discretionary budget item that can be reduced or eliminated at will, treat it as a mandatory budget item — just like health benefits or retirement funds.

Another important step is to set aside time for each employee to participate in training.  One company I worked for early in my career set aside 3 weeks every year for every employee.  While 3 weeks may be too much for most companies to absorb in today’s business environment, why not start with 3 days?  Make a commitment to your employees that you will provide them with a minimum of 3 days each year to develop the skills or acquire the knowledge you need them to have to be more successful.

Finally, hold yourself and your management team accountable for making sure that each employee receives the training and development that is identified each year.  Make it part of THEIR performance review (and yours) to provide the training and development opportunities that your employees need.

By elevating the importance of training and development of your employees, you will be showing your employees how much you value them.  When you do it with purpose, you will see a real and meaningful improvement in your organization’s overall performance.

Honor commitments for time-off and vacation requests.

We all need time off to relax and recharge our batteries, from the top of the organization to the very bottom.  One of the perks of being an executive is to have even more time off than our entry-level employees.  And most executives make sure they take every day that is due.  Yet, while we enjoy 4 or 5 weeks of time off each year, we may have employees who only have 5 or 10 days each year.  So why do companies make it so difficult for employees to schedule these few days off when they need it?

When we fail to approve a request for time-off that is submitted well in advance or when we cancel an approved request at the last minute, we are telling employees that our needs are more important than theirs.  Instead of communicating that they are valuable to us, we are communicating that we do not value them or their families.

Yes, there are times that we need to ask an employee to reschedule a vacation.  There may be a critically important project to complete or a game-changing proposal to submit.  But these should be the exception and not the rule.  And paying an employee for unused vacation time isn’t the answer, either.  An employee who is burned out is less motivated and less productive, regardless of how much we pay them.

As we begin 2013, examine your organization’s practices for scheduling time off.  Are you taking a balanced approach or are you treating some employees more favorably than others?  Is canceling or rescheduling time-off the exception or the rule?  If you do have to ask an employee to cancel or change a vacation, are you reimbursing them for non-refundable costs or are you shifting the financial burden to them?

Just like honoring your commitments to training and development, honoring your commitments for time-off requests demonstrates to your employees that you respect and value their contributions to your success.

Make the tough decisions to remove the “bad actors”.

I started this blog with a story about the “boss from hell”.  It turns out that this boss is one of the exceptions and not the rule at this particular company.  It is widely known in the organization that he does not treat his employees with respect, that he takes credit for ideas that are not his own, and that he takes advantage of his best performers by denying time-off and training requests while rewarding the poor performers by approving these requests.  So why does he still have his job?

As an executive, one of the best decisions you can make for your entire team is to remove the “bad actors”.  Whether it is an employee who simply is not performing or a manager who refuses to conform to your principles, leaving these “bad actors”  in place is demoralizing to everyone who needs to cover for their shortcomings.  If you have been putting this off because it is difficult, do not put it off any longer.  You are likely spending far too much time and energy on managing these people and the consequences of their actions at the expense of the people who can actually help you achieve your vision.

Celebrate your employees’ successes.

One of the easiest — and costless — things you can do to show your employees more respect is to simply thank them for the work that they do.  Certainly, you can and should have more formal means of celebrating success, such as raises, performance bonuses, and other recognition programs.  But a simple thank you from the “big boss” on an ordinary work day can often produce the most extraordinary results.

You can start your resolution to treat your employees with more respect as soon as you are done reading this blog.  Just walk the halls of your facility or pick up the phone to call remote employees with no purpose other than to shake a hand and say thank you.  You will make their day — and they, in turn, will help make your year the best it can be.

This is Part 3 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In Part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives for 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #2: Treat your customers with more respect in 2013.

Why Customers Deserve Our Respect

I once worked with an entrepreneur who maintained a pretty simple accounting system.  He had one folder called “Money In” and a second folder called “Money Out”.  Each month, he entered all the “money in” and “money out” into an Excel spreadsheet.  When the “money out” exceeded the “money in”, he didn’t immediately start looking for ways to cut costs.  Instead, he jumped all over ways to find more customers and new orders.  While he may have been naïve in his accounting practices, he did understand something that everyone in business should understand but often forgets.  Without customers, the business cannot thrive and grow.  Without customers, there are no revenues to cover the costs.  Without customers, there simply is no business.

Despite this simple truth, some business leaders consistently and repeatedly treat customers – and prospective customers — with disrespect.  They will exaggerate product or service claims just to land a new customer.  They will propose a project with one set of resources and replace them with less qualified personnel once they receive the order.  They will take short-cuts on a project and then submit a change request to deliver the original scope.  They will fail to respond to a customer request or concern in a timely fashion – if at all.  And then they will wonder why the customer walks away from the relationship.

Now, I am not saying that there aren’t bad customers.  There are.  There are customers who try to take advantage of small businesses by pressuring them into rate reductions.  There are customers who pay late.  There are customers who will use every tactic available to avoid approving a legitimate change request.  But while the customer may not always be right, they are always the customer.  They provide the revenues that cover our costs.  They are our reason for being.  For that reason alone, they deserve our respect – even if we don’t like them much.

Here are four things you can do in 2013 to treat your customers with more respect.

Be truthful with your customers.

Being truthful begins early in the marketing and sales cycle.  Take a look at your website and your marketing and sales materials.  Are all of your claims true or have you exaggerated a bit to claim a stronger presence in a market or technology than your company deserves?  Or perhaps they were true when you created the material, but something has changed to make them less true today.  For example, maybe you have changed the product design to make it more affordable to produce, but now the product is less reliable or more prone to breakage.

If you are a service organization, take a look at your proposal process.  When is the last time you updated the boilerplate that you use in your proposals?  Does it still reflect your company and your capabilities?  Perhaps you no longer have some of the technology skills you used to feature due to employee turnover or changes in your strategic direction.

If you are chasing business outside of your traditional markets, do you truly have the capacity to deliver on your proposal commitments?  Or are you assuming you can figure it out after you get the order?  You may be able to get the first order by incorporating a few little “white lies” in the proposal, but you are unlikely to keep the customer after the first engagement once the truth is revealed.

Being truthful is the first step in treating your customers with more respect. And your customers will respond by treating you and your company with more respect.

Perform as if you will never get another change request.

In my first post, I posed a question similar to this:

Have you ever hurried through a project in order to meet a deadline, taking shortcuts that you knew you would have to fix later?

 If you answered yes, you would not be alone.  Service companies, like management consultants, engineering firms, and system integrators, all face a similar set of challenges in providing services to customers.  The best of these service companies will approach each project with the idea that that the project should be completed on time and under budget with few or no change requests.  The worst will view each project as an opportunity to make a windfall profit by taking advantage of every opportunity to submit a change request.  Most fall in the middle, taking the high road when they can, and the low road when they must.  Unfortunately, the low road seldom leads to a follow-on order.  So what can you do in 2013 to take the high road more often?

The first challenge is getting a scope document that is clearly defined and understood by both the customer and the service provider.  The service company that prefers the low road is perfectly happy with a loosely defined scope.  It gives them the opportunity to interpret the requirements in such a way that they can underbid the competitors and then underperform the work.  The high road requires a great deal of communication with the customer prior to signing the contracts.  Or, in the case of a formal request for proposal (RFP) where the communication is limited, the proposer will need to clearly define the assumptions and limitations of the proposal to provide the necessary definition and tie it to the pricing. Since the high road requires more time and applied intelligence on the part of the proposer, it is tempting to take short-cuts during the proposal process.  Since these shortcuts can lead to dead-ends and detours during the project that can be very costly to both the customer and the service provider, you may want to revamp your proposal process in 2013 to place more emphasis on scope definition.

The second challenge is to staff the project with resources that are capable of performing the work in accordance with the schedule.  Sadly, the timing of project awards seldom matches the availability of the resources that need to be assigned to the project.  Service providers often face the challenge of either pulling resources off another project or acquiring new or contracted employees to fill gaps in order to fully staff a new project.  The low road alternative is to either substitute less qualified employees or delay the staffing on the project and try to compress the later part of the schedule.  Such substitutions and delays on the front end of a project are rarely recovered without convincing the customer to accept less scope or delaying the end date of the project.  You may want to review your staff allocation process and see if you can develop an approach that reduces the number of times you need to assign different resources to a new project or delay a project schedule.

The third challenge is to maintain the kind of project plans and controls that can detect and correct problems before they become change requests.  Companies that routinely and consistently deliver projects on time and on budget have well established and disciplined project management processes.  If you have not already invested in developing these processes and training your team to use them, 2013 might be the year to start.

Build your customer service processes around your customers’ needs, not yours.

To truly understand this concept, think about your own needs as a customer who has a question about a product or service.  Do you prefer to speak to a live human being or use an automated system to get help on your phone bill?  When you speak to a person, do you prefer that they be in the same time zone, speaking the same language?  How long are you willing to stay on hold?  How long do you want to wait for someone to get back to you with an answer?  How many phone calls are you willing to make before you give up?

Your customers probably want most of the same things you do.  They want to be able to reach a person who can resolve the problem quickly and with no more than one phone transfer.  They want a resolution to their issue within minutes or hours – not days or weeks.  They want to speak to someone who is knowledgeable about their company or application.  They don’t want to get into a debate about whose fault it is.  They want you to be respectful of their time.

Now take a truly objective look at your customer service processes and systems.  Were they designed with the needs of the customer in mind?  Or where they designed to suit your current staffing availability and culture?  Are your customer service representatives treating your customers with respect?  Or are they rude and impatient?  If you use a customer feedback form, is it simple enough that most customers will complete it?  Or is it so complex, that you only get feedback from the very unhappy?

Customer service processes that focus more on your needs than your customers can do more harm to your company’s reputation than good.   Take some time in 2013 to review your customer service policies and systems and make the changes needed to create a customer experience that is second to none.

Thank your customers for their business

I am sure that most of you reading this blog use a standard “Thank you for your business” at the bottom of proposals, correspondence, and invoices.  Or, you may send an annual “thank you” card at the holidays.  And this may be sufficient for most product companies or standard services like insurance.  But if you are a service company or a company that sells big-ticket items to other businesses, you may want to go further – especially if you are pursuing follow-on business with that customer.

Products or services that are big ticket or that have long selling cycles usually require the participation of a lot of people within the customer organization, beyond those that you work with directly to deliver the project.  Procurement, accounting, engineering, facilities management, and many other organizations may be involved in planning and implementing a large capital investment.  Recognizing their support and contributions directly or to their management can go a long way towards earning their support for future orders.

Pick up the phone and call the people who helped your company be successful and say thanks.  Send an email to their supervisor or manager with your thanks for their participation and support.  Post a recommendation for that person on LinkedIn — it may be far more valuable to their career than a free lunch or a golf outing.  Or schedule a meeting with the CEO or other executive sponsor with no purpose other than to say “thank you”.

With a simple “thank you”, you can demonstrate your respect for your customer and your appreciation for their business.

This is Part 2 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In Part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives for 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #1:  Be a better leader in 2013.

Understanding the Leadership Role of the Executive

As noted in my previous post, perhaps the most important role of an executive in any organization is to set the direction — and the tone — for the organization.  But is that enough to be good leader?  Not at all!  It takes a lot more than vision to be a good leader.  It takes action.

You cannot lead by memo.  Just signing your name to a vision statement, strategic plan, or policy isn’t going to make things happen.  You need to demonstrate your commitment by providing the time and funding to turn your vision into reality.  Furthermore, you have to truly BELIEVE in what you sign in your executive capacity. If you don’t believe in your vision, you are likely to make decisions and take actions that are counter to your stated vision or direction.  Very quickly, your employees will realize that the thing you signed is nothing more than a fancy piece of paper.

Leadership is not a spectator sport.  Coaches don’t win football games or baseball games by sitting on the sidelines, passively watching things unfold. They are actively engaged every minute of every game, always with an eye towards a championship. Good leaders do the same thing, staying engaged with the day to day business without losing sight of the long term vision.  Of course, if you are leading a major transformation, it can seem more like a rugby game than a baseball game.  It’s fast paced, and messy, and can be very confusing.  Like any good team captain, you need to be on the field with your team, getting dirty and taking your hits.

Leadership is more art than science.  It is relatively easy to acquire knowledge about leadership.  A simple search on the internet will turn up hundreds of companies offering to train you to be a leader.  And you can certainly learn many of the skills that are needed to be an effective manager and leader.  But becoming an exceptional leader requires more than knowledge.  It requires a lot of practice – and a good deal of heart.  Consider the difference between the drum major of a marching band and the conductor of a symphony orchestra.  Almost anyone can learn to set the beat for a marching band.  But it takes a lot of knowledge, practice, and heart to integrate the different instruments of an orchestra into a memorable musical moment.

Here are four things you can do in 2013 to improve your leadership.

Create a Clear Vision for your Organization

Having a very clear vision for your organization is the first step.  Some people have the natural gift of vision – Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Ray Kroc, and Mary Kay Ash. These larger-than-life business leaders not only created global enterprises from humble beginnings, they changed our language, our culture, and our world.

For the rest of us, vision is something we have to work at.  And most of us cannot – and probably should not – try to create this vision on our own.  We need to engage others in helping us create a clear vision – our employees, our customers, and our board of directors.  And we may want to look outside of our own industry for new ideas and fresh ways of thinking about building our business.

Your vision or strategy should be very clear and easy to communicate.  When you return to work after January 1^st, try this simple test.  Walk around your office and ask different employees at all levels of the organization this question:  “Why are we here?”  Listen to what they tell you.  Are they able to articulate a vision or mission for your organization?  Is it consistent with your vision?  Is it consistent from person to person?  Or are you getting a variety of different or contradictory answers?  Believe me, if you employees are confused – so are your customers.

If you don’t have a clear vision or strategy for your organization, you need to create one – soon.  Otherwise, your organization will keep doing what it is doing – with the same results you had last year.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Once you have a clearly defined vision or strategy, you need to start turning it into action.  If there is one skill that all good leaders have in common, it is that they communicate their vision with their employees and their customers – personally and repeatedly. And, like the real estate mantra of “location, location, location”, it bears repeating three times – communicate early, communicate often, and communicate consistently.

The vision for your company should permeate every aspect of your organization.  Your vision is intended to attract the kind of customers that can make your organization grow and be profitable.  Consequently, every communication with your customers and prospects should reinforce the message.  Your website, sales collateral, marketing campaigns, letters, emails, and even phone calls should contain messaging that reinforces your vision.  When is the last time you really looked at the content of these marketing and sales communications?  Are they creating the kind of image for your company that will lead to your success?  If not, this might be the perfect time to align your marketing and sales communications with your vision.

The same is true for your internal communications. Your employees can’t read your mind.  Left on their own, they will do what they think is best, whether it matches your intended direction or not.  You need to take every opportunity to reinforce your commitment to your vision and to help employees understand what you expect from them.  Talk about the vision in your weekly staff meetings.  Refer to the vision whenever you write a memo or establish a new policy.  Walk the halls on a regular basis and just talk to employees about your vision and ask them for ideas to make it happen.

Participate Every Day in Every Way

While preparing this post, I came across a recent article in Inc. magazine by Les McKeown entitled 4 Ways to be a Leader Who Matters.  While all 4 ways contain valuable advice for leaders, the one that really struck home with me was the fourth: “Model more than you share.”  Mr. McKeown goes on to say the following:

 “Seeing it isn’t doing it.  Sharing it isn’t doing it.  Only doing it is doing it.”

Being a good leader means being a good follower.  You need to be able to follow your own vision.  Regardless of what you write on paper, the true strategy of your company is reflected in the decisions you make and the actions you take on a day-to-day basis.

Take stock of your own decisions and behaviors.  For example, if safety is important, don’t routinely ignore your own safety rules. There is nothing more damaging to a safety initiative than an executive who won’t wear the required safety equipment in the plant.  If a flexible response to customer demands is essential to your success, don’t set up your manufacturing operations to be inflexible.  If your business is characterized by a long sales cycle, then focusing all of your attention on the 10-day sales report is counter to your vision.  If developing new skills in your employees is a stated priority, then failing to fund the necessary training is a tacit admission that it isn’t YOUR priority.

Your employees will model what you do — not what you say.  So, if you want new behaviors in your organization, you will need to start by changing your own behaviors.

Be Patient about Your Impatience

Leadership is about action.  And action is about change.  But change takes time.  Many executives are impatient about the length of time it takes to implement a new initiative.  Impatience isn’t a bad trait – in fact, constant and repeated attention by the executive to the initiative is an important aspect of driving it forward.  But a good leader will practice “patient impatience.”

When it comes to transformational change, there is no “magic bullet”.  Vision and strategy are long term commitments, not short term tactics.  Executives who constantly change the direction of the company in their search for a quick fix create confusion and frustration for their employees — and for their customers.  If you have a tendency to do this, make a resolution to stick to your strategy for one year.  You will be providing your team with the leadership they deserve and you might just surprise yourself and find the success you have been seeking.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  I started the series thinking it was a single blog.  But once I got started, I realized I had a lot more to say than one blog would allow.  I hope you find some value in my “musings” as you make your plans for 2013.

As the new year approaches, many of us are beginning to think about our personal resolutions.  Just as in every year prior, we promise ourselves that “this year is going to be different.”  We are going to lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, attend church, be a better husband, wife, mother, father, friend, and finish that project we started 10 years ago.  And every once in a while, we actually succeed.

But what about our professional resolutions for the New Year?  When is the last time you made a New Year’s resolution to be a better leader, to  provide your customers with better service, to treat your employees with more respect,  or to see a new initiative through to the end?   With the seemingly interminable economic doldrums, perhaps it is time we stopped waiting for the Administration and Congress to “fix” things for us and focus instead on what we can control — ourselves.

In the spirit of holiday giving, here are 5 Great New Year’s Resolutions for Executives that might just help you improve your business in 2013.

Resolution #1:  Be a better leader

Perhaps the most important role of an executive in any organization is to set the direction — and the tone — for the organization.  And perhaps the most common failing of executives is to exempt themselves from behaving in ways that are consistent with the stated direction.  To see if this resolution is right for you, ask yourself these questions:

Do I have a clear vision and strategy?
Have I communicated it to my organization?
Are my own decisions and actions consistent with the stated direction?

If you answer “no” or “I’m not sure” to any of these questions, you have the opportunity step up your leadership in 2013.

Resolution #2: Treat your customers with more respect.

Every organization has customers, whether they are the external buyers of your products or services, or the internal consumers of your staff.  As executives, we understand intellectually that good customer service is essential for attracting and retaining customers or enhancing the organization’s reputation.  Yet, in our zeal to capture new customers or in our preoccupation with controlling costs, we sometimes make decisions that demonstrate a lack of respect for the customer.  Ask yourself these questions:

Have we ever exaggerated a claim about a product or service in order to capture a sale?
Have we ever hurried through a project in order to meet a deadline, taking shortcuts that we knew we would have to fix later?
When a customer complains, do we spend more time telling them they are wrong or that they are to blame than it would take to fix it?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, your organization is showing signs that it does not respect or value your customers.  You can make 2013 the “Year of the Customer” by transforming your business practices to improve customer service.

Resolution #3: Treat your employees with more respect

Take a look at any enterprise strategy and you will likely find the common sentiment that “employees are our most important resource”.  Online careers pages will tout the virtues of the company for providing good benefits, training and development, and advancement opportunities. Far too often, however, the reality is very different.   How would your employees answer these questions?

Does your organization provide you with an annual performance review that helps you improve your performance?
Does your organization provide adequate support (time and funding) for training and career development to help you improve your skills?
Does your organization acknowledge the importance of a healthy work-life balance by limiting overtime and honoring time-off requests?

If your employees would answer “no” to any of these questions, you may need to take a serious look at your human resources management practices.  Why not make a renewed commitment to your employees in 2013 and truly treat them as your most valuable resources?

Resolution #4:  Finish what you start

Transformation seems to be the word of the decade.  There are quality transformations, lean transformations, customer service transformations, and, of course, the business process transformations associated with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations.  Transformations by their very nature are not quick and they are not cheap.  For many executives, it is tempting to give up on a new initiative when faced with the realities of this week’s financials.  Giving up can take many forms, some obvious and some not so obvious.  Think about one of your current transformation initiatives and ask yourself these questions.

Are you actively involved in leading the initiative on an ongoing basis?
Do you regularly monitor its progress and performance?
Do you hold people accountable for meeting their commitments?
Do you regularly and personally celebrate success?

If you cannot answer “yes” to all of these questions, your transformation initiative is likely to stall out or die completely.   If the transformation is an important part of your long term strategy, you can resolve to renew your commitment to the transformation effort in 2013.

Resolution #5:  If it’s broken, fix it now

The first four resolutions all deal with specific processes that might be “broken” in your organization.  But there may be other barriers to achieving your vision that need to be addressed.  When the barriers involve organizational or management issues, the fixes may seem too difficult or “messy” to deal with.  Unfortunately, these types of barriers do not usually resolve themselves.  By delaying action, you can actually make the situation even worse.  Ask yourself the following.

Are the functional “silos” in my organization standing in the way of achieving my vision?
Do I have one or more managers in place who are not capable of providing the leadership we need?
Am I facing active or passive resistance to the changes I want to make in my organization?

If you even suspect that the answers to one of these questions might be ”yes”, you can resolve to make 2013 your “Year of Action”.

This article is Part 1 of a six-part series.  In this article, I have identified five New Year’s resolutions that every executive can consider for 2013.  In the next five articles, I will dig a little deeper into each resolution and offer some suggestions for how the resolution might be implemented.