"I Have This Employee"
by Teressa McCluskey, Success Code Coach with JeffBurrows.com

Whether on a call with a client, at their place of business, or just out with friends, I hear numerous stories regarding the challenges business owners face with their employees. One story in particular comes to mind: "I have this employee. When I hired him, I thought he could do this, but he constantly does that. He’s not working out, but I just can’t seem to let him go."

At first glance this story appears to be all about the employee-what the employee has or has not done. However, this isn’t about the employee and the hope that he or she will change. Unfortunately, the employee is not going to change unless they want to change. The only thing you can change is you. The story provides a great opportunity to change the way you interact with your employee, which reminds me of Principle 9 of Your Inner Chief Operating Officer: Communicate the Consequences for Missed Accountabilities.

The purpose of Principle 9 is to ensure maximum accountability with minimum conflict by create guidelines for manager-staff communications. In a well-run business, no matter how small or large, everything is based on a written, fully operating system. That includes how managers communicate with employees, particularly in the area of accountability. Many business owners and managers avoid holding staff accountable because they are anxious about potential conflict. While it is impossible to remove all conflict in a relationship, it is certainly possible and valuable to reduce it to a minimum. The worst, and most expensive, way is to avoid uncomfortable encounters and let things slide. The second worst is to play the tyrant, using random rage as a way to handle accountability. The only effective long-term solution is an agreed upon system for conflict resolution.

In order to achieve this long-term system solution, I suggest you start by reviewing your current processes and practices for handling missed accountabilities and conflictive issues. Then identify which of the following is true of your leadership style:

• Do you address issues directly and calmly, with specific reference to written agreements and procedures?
• Do you tend to postpone and avoid potential conflict-creating encounters?
• Do you play the tyrant- occasional outbursts of anger at a missed accountability?
• Do you do something else?

If you address issues directly and calmly, with specific reference to written agreements and procedures, my hat is off to you!!! You are steps ahead of your peers.

If not, your goal is to begin creating procedures for missed accountabilities and conflict resolution. List the situations where accountabilities tend to be most often missed and/or conflicts tend to arise or are avoided because there is potential for conflict. Identify two or three situations where the effects of not dealing with the missed accountability or the conflict are the most costly to your business. Review or identify pre-established consequences for missed accountabilities. For example: verbal admonition, a note in the employee file, a warning letter, etc. Create a written system or agreement for missed accountabilities and conflict resolution. Create a missed accountability meeting agenda. This document sets the framework for a meeting where accountability has been missed. I encourage you to adapt this model to fit your leadership style:

• Review pre-agreed outcome
• Review actual outcome
• Review actions taken or missed
• Listen to explanations for the shortfall
• Acknowledge positive employee conduct
• Fairly, but firmly, attribute responsibility for the missed accountability, according to the circumstance
• Remind the employee of the pre-established consequences
• Impose the consequence
• Courteously, but swiftly, close the meeting

And finally, communicate the consequences for missed accountabilities to the employee.

The overall result of Principle 9 is to……ensure maximum accountability with minimum conflict. Thus, taking another step towards becoming the CEO of Your Life!!

Your Inner CEO

Principle 3 of Your Inner CEO: Learn How to Create a Business that Serves your Life

Practical Application: Verify that the Spirit, Action, Vision of your Strategic Objective is contributing to your Life Purpose.

Result: To energize your business by aligning it with your driving force.

Your Inner CMO

Principle 4 of Your Inner CMO: Conduct a Trading Area of Analysis of your Business

Practical Application: Create a 'war room' map of your trading area. Use colored pins or some other marker to indicate customer activity in different parts of the map.

Review the map and address these questions:

• Where are most customers located?
• Where are the most profitable customers located?
• Where am I incurring the least cost for the most returns?
• Where am I incurring the most cost for the lowest returns?

Result: To maximize revenues and attract new customers.

Live R.I.C.H.
by Dina Dwyer-Owens

Live R.I.C.H., is testament to the value of having a company story or myth as I like to call it. Your myth, the legend of your business, is the story that shares the events that happened on your epic pursuit to create/sustain the company. The myth is the sinew that explains the events that hold the past, present and future together. It is the story that will bind your company together and is the basis for the identity of your business. It is the ingredient in all codes of moral and ethical conduct and establishes the rules for doing business. It is an outward expression of your core beliefs that gives meaning to the life of the organization. The myth, your story, is sacred. The most sacred thing you can do is to share it.

Dina Dwyer-Owens illuminates the Code of Values of her organization in plain talk. She makes distinct her position on Respect, Integrity, Customer focus and Having fun.

The core values are the constructs, girders, posts, and beams that give structure to any organization. Clear values, core to the business, set the parameters for decisions that make the enterprise work with grace and elegance. Explain the core values of your business in the story you write. Make them clear, concise, and evident. The Dwyer Group Code of values has impacted people's lives and businesses while keeping the company grounded as it grew from $27 million to more than $127 million in revenues last year.

Wes Burnett
Navigator Wealth Management, LLC (formerly known as Legacy Analytics, LLC)
www.legacyanalytics.com

What a year of change!

One year ago, May 2007, we had a 1 week retreat with Tony Arnold. During this 5-day retreat, we explored our life goals, our Primary Aim (where we are & where we want to go), developed our Strategic Objective (the vision of the business) and our Company Story (a story of who we are and how we got here), determined our Key Strategic Indicators, aka KSIs, (how we measure what we do). It was an amazing experience for everyone in our business! Prior to this we did not have a clear vision of where we were going. We discovered that our underlying theme is to be a ‘truly caring organization.'

With this clear vision in mind, we are able to communicate both to prospective employees and clients who we are and where we want to go.

What we have accomplished:

• Created a clear vision of our company and changed the name of the company
• Rebranded our company with new brochures, new web sites, new letterhead, and rebranded marketing materials
• Moved our business location to a new location with all new equipment and furniture and renovated our software, hardware and back up systems scanning over 1,000,000 pages for thousands of clients to go paperless
• Recruited high caliber employees that are extremely dedicated to our vision- we are light years from where we were 1 ½ years ago!
• Documented hundreds of work processes step-by-step for every position agreement to ensure continuity and consistency and eliminate errors and frustrations for personnel. Challenged each employee to improve their processes.
• Weekly EDM meetings- different than a performance review- really gets employees to talk, also produces better leaders in our managers

Our ‘truly caring organization’ shows itself to our employees and our clients each and every day. We’d really like to thank our coach, Tony Arnold, for guiding us through these processes. We could not have done this without him!

-Wes

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Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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