strategycorner Strategic Management

How to manage your time, a personal view

2019-04-07T09:54:00.002-07:00

It is likely the vast majority of the potential readers of this post know very well how to manage their time. There is a lot of articles, books etc on the subject. It is also likely these readers have the thinking “I know all about it, I have no problem in my daily professional work”.

This post does not intend to lecture but showing a personal view about how I normally manage my time at work.

Let me put this in context with a short real story. If you were told by the Managing Director of your company that he wanted you for a challenging assignment which means working closer to him giving you the opportunity to deal with strategic issues, gain more experience and even provide you some promotion prospects, would you take it? The answer would be likely, yes. If, however you were told that you would spend one day a week on this assignment and carry out your present work in the remaining four days, would you still accept it? Of course, probably you would. But how could you manage it? Definitely you would need to organize yourself better because you will need to do your existing work in four-fifths of the time you spend at the moment.

To recover this one-fifth or more, you need to think about how you use your time. You would need to organize yourself better and get other people to help or at least, which sometimes, it is really difficult, not to hinder you.

I am sure a lot of people could tell examples like the above mentioned. So how to cope with this o similar situations?

First, start with your current assignment, the tasks you carry out and the objectives you have to achieve. Try to establish an order of priority between your tasks and among your objective.

Right, I know what you think. This is difficult when you have a number of potentially conflicting areas of responsibility. And for this reason, at the end of your day you could say yourself: I have wasted my time, I have achieved next to nothing. Don’t desperate. I understand very well this feeling.

You could sort out the relative importance of your objectives and try to attach priorities to your tasks. As a second step you could give yourself sufficient free time to concentrate on major problems so you could react quickly to them.

And now a very important element. Yes, of course, delegation. You got it. You can classify the sort of issues that could arise and decided which could “safely” be delegated to others and which you should deal directly.

But at that point of time it is necessary to analyze more in detail how you spend your time. This will allow you to identify time-consuming activities and indicate where there are problems as well as possible solutions to them.

Prepare your “to do list” the day before. Summarize how effectively you spent your time. In this you will have the typical issues, reading, writing, skype calls, emails, dealing with people, attending to meetings and others depending on your area of work and expertise. The analysis will provide you the information you need to spot the weaknesses you have in managing your time. You could even prepare a time-consumer checklist to identify problems and why not, possible remedies.

I would say the main problem comes in the way you plan your work and establish your priorities. You have to fit the task you should complete into the time available to complete them and get them done in order of importance. Yes, right, you could be in your office long hours and it is likely to be the solution for you but it is not too much healthy and it is not part of the game.

I know that some people find it difficult, if not impossible, to plan their work ahead. They find they work best if they have to achieve almost impossible deadlines. Working under pressure concentrates the mind wonderfully, I heard it in a lot of situations.

But we are ordinary mortals, right? who work under a variety of conflicting pressures and we could not rely upon crisis action to get out of our work. For most of us, I assume, it is better to try to minimize the need for working under exceptional pressure by a little attention to the organization of our week or day. At the very least you should use some kind long range planning, organize your weekly activities in broad outline and plan each day in some details.

Hence what could be the practice? Sit down at the beginning of each week with your agenda, notebook or outlook planner and plan how you are going to spend your time. Assess each of your projects or tasks and work out priorities. Leave blocks of time for dealing with emails and seeing people. In my case I put everything down on paper, in a small notebook and I write what I intend to do the next day, in the morning and in the afternoon. You will probably have a better method so take advantage of it!!

At this stage why not having kind of daily organizer whatever is the format, in your computer, laptop, outlook or on paper. You can consult every morning when arriving to the office your plans and commitments. Check what is outstanding and act accordingly if you are jeopardizing a deadline.

I do not want to forget that besides organizing your work you probably need to organize as well your team. Give some housekeeping advice. Try to educate them to avoid unnecessary interruptions. Do not anger them by shutting them out when they have something urgent to discuss. But if it can wait get them to agree to meet you later at a fixed time.

As I mentioned before delegation is a critical element for your help. You will save a lot of time with your collaborators if you decide what work you could delegate to them. You will save even more time if you delegate clearly and spell out how and when you want them to report back. In line with this a very important issue, learn to say no to collaborators who want to see you when you are engaged on more important things. But also give them a time when they can see you. I would say talking generally to your team about their job can be time well spent if it helps to increase mutual understanding and respect.

What I mentioned above as time-consumer checklist could look like this:

Problem: Trying to do too much at a time. Possible remedies: Set priorities. Do one thing at a time

Problem: Getting involved in too much detail. Remedy: Delegate more

Problem: Postponing unpleasant tasks. Remedy: Avoid procrastination. Do them quickly

Problem: Constant interruptions with skype calls. Remedy: State firmly you will call back when possible

Problem: Insufficient time to think. Remedy: Reserve blocks of time for thinking

Problem: Too much time spent in conversations. Remedy: Decide in advance what you want to achieve when you meet someone.

Problem: Too much time spent in skype meetings: Remedy: Review all the meetings you hold and eliminate as many as you can.

I know that every professional has their own method according to the situation, experience, management style and working environment but remember you need to manage your time, also thinking in the important and in the urgent with the sane objective to give relief to the stress and be more efficient.

Think about it and share your thoughts!!

Are we suffering from excessive leadership?

2018-05-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

In the vast majority of the management courses we can hear a lot of messages addressed to the executives talking about the excellence and competitiveness of the organizations in the global economy including the meaning of social responsibility, human capital, quality, strategy, innovation and knowledge management. But on top of this message there is one mentioned very often, the leadership. In my opinion this is really a fashionable word, this post is about my reflection if sometimes we are suffering excessive leadership.

The question is the managers/executives have to catalyze the performance of the areas under their responsibility with a satisfactory working environment. We may call this as leadership but I would say that bosses and subordinates feel as such or better to say like executives and collaborators. It does not seem some feel like real leaders and the others followers but it could be considered as the leadership of subordinates, the so-called human resources displayed after achieving the desired outcome and fostering the best possible working environment.

Although the relationship is obviously hierarchical the above mentioned fashionable word is very common above all in the human resources scope. In my opinion we should start avoiding the “label” human resources and assume that you are a leader by the decision-choice of your followers instead of being a leader because you are the boss or you have attended to a seminar of leadership. To explain it a little bit more, just think about creativity where it depends on we are perceived as creative people and not because we have attended to creativity seminars. But the truth is there are a lot of talks about leadership and human resources but if we talk about resources the right word would be “managing” instead of “leading”.

This particular leadership can be exerted, of course, with different management styles, based on corporate culture, based on the personality of the individuals. Apart from the alterations of the professional values and competence shortage that can be found in the senior leaders/executives we could also focus some distress in their behavior probably due to the stress, anxiety, obsessions etc. In this context of this behavior “disorder” I would also add some level of excess of leadership. It is likely I could be wrong but sometimes I think that some leaders guided by this fashionable word or due to the excess of reading books about leadership or even by attending too much leadership courses or conferences they are overacting and assuming an excessive prominence.

Needless to remember that the leader to some extent is the superhero of the literature about management and that a lot of consultants, coaches and lectures are settled in the leadership skills as the essential quality of the senior executive.

Sometimes, I honestly think there is an excess of leadership and between all this worrying some kind of delirium. It is likely some leaders will be successful in the head. I cannot generalize but I read a lot of books on the subject during my career and I can remember striking statements. For example, the leader has to conquer the intelligence, the wish and the emotions of the followers. Another example, the leader is the one who achieves people do what they have to do. And the last example, managing people is difficult because they have sex, age and character. My conclusion on the above is that some authors think the leader is the hero and the followers are pure mediocrity. I could be wrong in my conclusion, apologize for it.

I also think the balance, moderation and common sense is the most common scenario. However, there may be some cases where some leaders, under questionable influences, show a behavioral distress with the following indications:

• Permanent instructions and controls in the people management that remember the “old foreman style”.

• Tendency to ignore the knowledge, initiative, ideas, opinions, merit, expectations and even the needs of the subordinates.

• Tribute to the own ego and the appearances which leads to the inability to recognize errors or lack of competences and accept criticism.

• Excess of self-esteem and sense of being indispensable and infallible utilizing the rest of people as mere resources.

• Exaggeration about the past achievements and lack of realism to formulate new goals.

• Desire to impose beliefs, values, feelings and habits in his/her collaborators beyond the desirable alignment of efforts.

• Manipulating practices such as promises, motivating pep talks, lies, encouragement of dependency, “smoke screens”, etc.

But the question is why this excess of leadership? In my opinion there are different reasons.

A lot of young executives/leaders attend to training and development programs where they claim a special talent, a promising future where they are requesting to take risks without fear of failure, being optimistic and positive. Where the need and relevance of leadership is emphasized and where they are told, in many cases, that without leadership the efforts of the teams will not deliver results. Maybe a dangerous adulation.

What is then the fair point of leadership? The vast majority of leaders seem to know it, but in this context, I would say it is the one in which the leader forgets his/her condition of leader and, conversely, the subordinates feel themselves followers.

The final question would be, is there a treatment for the excess of leadership? The reply is probably there is but it would go through the detailed review of the mental models. But the fact is that some leadership training courses do not neutralize the “disorder” but foster it. Some cultures and management styles do not neutralize it either. Based on that the excess of leadership is frequently irreversible and the best would be to prevent it. Prevent it very carefully and with attention so that “the frog would not boil”. We need to insist that any artificial enhancement of the executive/leader could generate a dose of inhibition of valuable abilities in the subordinates/collaborators.

The q

Talent Development (every talent belongs to someone)

2018-03-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Indeed, this post is about talent. In the last years the acquisition and development of talent is a priority in the agenda of the vast majority of organizations and executives.

But this is not really new. In my experience managing different teams we have different ways of developing the talent, for example, why instead of looking from the top how to develop the talent we apply our intelligence to help them to discover their own? I will try to explain what I mean.

Let´s start to ask ourselves some questions as follows:

· Which is the talent that makes them unique and it is needed by the organization?

· In which situations and how they could develop it?

· Why we don’t create scenarios and opportunities so they could effectively test it?

· What if we give them feedback about how they did it and how they could improve it?

If you are worried to retain your key employees, those who will allow you to carry out your corporate strategy which took a lot of resources (time, effort and expertise) to be planned I can understand your worries.

Allow me to tell an example from my own experience. Some time ago when I was leading a finance department I proposed to my organization to look the talent development from a different perspective. We need to consider the human being aspect that was my argument. I did not get too much approval, to be honest, no approval at all. I heard things like “this is not your business you just do the changes approved by the senior management” or “we understand your point but you know, here the things are different, people don’t leave the company, they need the money and they do whatever”. The attrition rate was increasing dramatically. But not only the new employees were leaving but also the most seniors as well, including some pioneers and also the so called “right hands”. How was this possible? Was not money everything?

I insisted that we needed to ask different questions, intelligent questions. Avoiding the questions where the replies could be premeditated. The senior management and the HR Director asked me to prepare a list with my proposals. Well, see below some examples:

· How do you feel on Monday morning?

· How do you feel on Friday afternoon?

· Do you think we should offer anything different to our customers?

· What obstacles, from the leadership perspective, do we put to allow you to do your tasks?

· Do you know how your work contributes to the business?

· How do you think we could save money?

· If your work is not for 10 points, what do you lack to do it?

· What was the latest decision senior management made and you did not understand?

· How we could communicate these decisions in a clearer way next time?

· How could you do you work more effectively?

· If you could change the collective behavior of the organization, what would it be?

· How you see, how you feel working in the team of this company?

· What make you feel proud of working in this company?

· What did you learn last week? From whom did you learn anything?

I could add more but I don’t want to bore the reader!!!

The above questions did the people spoke out. Speak out if you are concerned, that was the message. When you ask people honestly they are ready to share their thoughts. They talk with the expectations that something is going to change. At the end of the day we have to tell the employee which is the talent the company needs from him/her.

As you know the quality of the answers are based on the quality of the questions. The reason for the above mentioned questions was to look for clues to clear up the uncertainty in terms of what the person considers the company could do to improve his/her performance and results. In other words it is the employee who will express the intention to develop and strengthen those capabilities that would increase his/her value, image and self-confidence. Hence the question is: what is the organization doing to create opportunities where the talent of the employees can be put in practice? We don’t need to assign the role of team leader immediately but the person can be a team member where he/she can feel is useful, trustful and part of something superior and important.

Continuing with the above example after telling the employees what was the talent most needed and how they could apply it and after including them in challenging projects the situation started to change. The employees started to express their opinions and freeing the first talent: to respond creatively and sincerely to honest questions and concrete experiences. In this scenario the ability of the company to capture all these comments and transform in recognition and concrete rewards started to create a philosophy of respect for the own capabilities and the willingness to “walk an extra mile”.

The takeaway of this story is to know the organizations cannot assume the right to lead and manage the talent, the knowledge, the culture, the satisfaction or any other intangible which is flying over the company. The persons have to be seen from a global perspective so the organization can meet their motivations better than other only focused on satisfying the own needs even if they are well-intentioned.

Based on the above managing the talent should not be the “business priority” of the moment but to ask ourselves: if we already have the base group in our organization with dozens of talents waiting to be shown up, what can we do with them? It is about maximizing the current talent not to manage it. And actually is not a “war of talent” as in the war nobody wins. The searching should be in the opposite, in my view, get that all win, the employee, the manager the organization and the society. This way winning the heart of the people and establishing the mechanisms and support that contains the discipline people will remain in your organization. Do the right thing others will imitate it.

The boss: to be or not to be (nothing is what it seems)

2018-01-11T09:12:00.003-08:00

! You seem the boss! Are you the boss? When we analyze the features, the behaviors and the attitudes of who have the responsibility to lead people or manage teams we come to the conclusion that bosses are who feel as bosses, who assume the commitment to achieve profitable results for the company and for their collaborators.

The society of the image, in which we currently live, can distort the reality of who is in command in an organization in such a way that the appearance to be the boss can create a benefit to whom being in managerial roles does not act as true managers but as “true actors”.

Becoming accustomed to a managerial role using all kind of tricks to assure the continuation in this position and the correspondent good salary is the goal and benefit of those who would like the world not to turn, not to change of temperature and not to suffer any problem in the markets.

Luckily life goes on and change constantly offering opportunities of entrepreneurial improvements, corporate goals and collective performance. It changes so quickly that there is no time to change the mask and act in the next scene.

They are staying out of the picture many managers who proclaim themselves as the bosses, just credited by the name and position hanging from the door of their desks, not by the valuation and acceptance of their collaborators who identify them as responsible of the bad working environment, of the demotivation in the company, the high rate of absenteeism and finally of the poor economic results.

For who is profitable to pretend to be the boss? The answer is easy: for whoever appears to be. And, who harms such appearance? To the whole company and to all the actors who participate in the creation and optimization of the productivity in the organization.

If you consider you act under the appearance criteria to be the boss I would recommend you to think about the huge and serious damages that are impacting to the company in which you’re a manager or director. It is also important you think about your professional career and personal development in the last months.

If you feel as above probably you could request the help of a professional coach so you can decrease your professional fears, to stop pretending and improve your performance focused on the so called transparency.

You would need to learn how to work with emotional intelligence, managing your emotions and the emotions of your collaborators fostering productive and healthy attitudes and behaviors for the organization and for the rest of employees.

You could also use the collaboration and support of some of your collaborators, if possible people that are sincere and honest. Why not this employee you marginalized because he was very critic with you? So the first step you need to take to feel as “the true boss” is the desire to re-learn how to manage and lead giving up to be a “fiction actor” focused on intending to serve to your collaborators optimizing the company performance and improving the working environment.

Once you are integrated in the “club of the true bosses”, who are recognized by all customers, internal and external, of the company you have to decide if you want to be a normal boss, a good boss or an excellent boss. All will depend on your degree of commitment with the organization and employees goals.

If you decided to become an excellent boss you will need to work with practical intelligence transforming the entrepreneurial and professional excellence in daily tangible actions to manage your team. Any action of improvement of the performance will increase the culture of working excellence, organizational innovation and the culture of prevention for the interpersonal problems in the company.

There are a lot of professionals that due to their attitudes and aptitudes could be consider as true bosses but even for these “special bosses” it is very beneficial to be surrounded by an excellent team continuously providing feedback of their behavior and actions.

Be competent. Don´t expect a miracle

2017-10-17T09:46:00.001-07:00

Life is a competency that never is over. To be born and fine is our first victory. From this moment the competency is the norm if you want to be competitive, that is, to have the capacity to compete.

In the organizations and in all the aspects of the human actions who aims to be a leader needs to be immersed in a permanent competency. The society determines our competency, the idea to compete steeps our daily life so it is natural we see ourselves as competitors in our jobs.

In my opinion the competency is a free exercise of preparation in the development of our skills and in the development of our own intelligence. The people who are ready to compete from their childhood take advantage of their own resources and if they lack they manage to get them to face their rivals with the same intentions: to win.

The future leader knows very well his/her goals, he/she knows the effort has to be constant and to succeed you need more than attitude and wish.

The future leader faces challenges and overcome them, for example, excess of confidence, bad habits, conformism and a short intellectual vision. Without the aim of winning the efforts turn out to be useless to become the best, we have to believe we can and we need to do all the necessary to achieve it. But we have to remember that failures will be also in the way so we need to be positive and instead of thinking about frustration we have to consider it as the impulse needed to reinforce the efforts although the time devoted exhaust us, the stress increases and you see the victory far away despite your intents to achieve it.

Competency comes with responsibility there is no room for the pessimism if you want to become a leader, preparation and development are permanent because the leader cannot betray himself and cannot discourage his/her followers. Stagnation will never go with a good leader.

The more you are promoted in the organization more difficult is your responsibility and commitment. The promotion is the personal satisfaction and the collaborators and the organization are the reason for existing.

The competency encourages with the good result to those who strive for being something else that a stagnated person in a dark destiny. The success in the competency is directly linked with tenacity and courage when these are based in the good attitude and personality. To have success expectations you have to put aside the toxic intellectual restrictions which prevent us to develop the best physical, moral and intellectual attributes.

The danger in the career to become a leader is shown when we are stagnated in our plan for the promotion. When this happens you could fall in your conformism and then you are left behind by other that worked harder and consolidated their strategy. Finally conformism becomes a real problem and a barrier difficult to overcome. But when you have mature criteria and your convictions are strong with a high sense of responsibility and dignity your tenacity to be back on track for the promotion doing all the necessary remains unchanging.

If to the contrary the person lacks the mature criteria, strong convictions, responsibility and dignity in front of stagnation then the fact of being overtaken by others becomes a “sick person” for the organization as there is no satisfaction and all will produce disagreements and permanent gossips with regard to his/her duties.

Under the above mentioned situation it is possible the straggler leader reached his/her incompetence and therefore he/she has to make a bigger effort to be reintegrated to the hierarchical flow. The level of incompetence does not mean the person is no longer working but he/she achieved the limit and has the option to change the attitude to keep efficient in front of the followers he/she leads.

On the other hand if we want to be efficient leaders and we don’t achieve a significant progress in our development we will be less reliable. Leadership requires to be constant professional and culturally, aiming high and a lot of effort and dedication. The leader has to be always ready for the changes and to learn how to calculate his/her opportunities.

The leader has to fit in a profile and knowledge which match with all he/she is obliged to know to meet his/her duties without knowing everything. To know what you need to know, professionally, is indispensable for the leader and in the absence you take the risk to make stupidities.

I would say competency is really necessary. Without it the incentive to achieve the excellence will be set aside in a cold and deserted corner. Competing is healthy without reducing the effort you need to make. Laughs, jubilation, pain and tears are part of the competency. Competency manages our destiny as persons. Lack of competency is the main reason for the incompetency.

As a conclusion the competency is not dreaming or gaming is to devote all your efforts to improve and develop our knowledge. It is in our hands but don’t expect a miracle.

Do you want to influence? Be reliable

2017-10-03T08:18:00.003-07:00

Leadership is influence. This could be an accurate definition about leadership. In my opinion, without influence there is no leadership. And influence is based in the trust inspired by the leader to his/her followers. I would say trust is the fuel of leadership as petrol is the fuel of a car. Without petrol the car cannot move, in the same way without trust you cannot lead. Without the trust of the followers there is no influence and without influence there is no leadership. I think this is an infallible equation about leadership.

The leader needs to be reliable to influence his/her followers. His/her effectiveness as a leader depends on this. The reliability of the leader is indispensable to influence in the organizational environment. If a leader is not reliable, the employees will not follow his/her vision and will not participate with enthusiasm to achieve the common goals and finally will not be committed with the organization.

Trust is the pillar for leadership. Leadership is based on the management of relationships and the relationships are based on the trust. Therefore without trust there is no connection between the leader and the followers.

In my experience the capacity of the leader to influence is due to the degree of acceptance in the organization. That is, to influence you need the followers believe in you, in your ethics, integrity, strength, competency.

However the reliability of the followers in the leader does not appear by chance. The leader needs to work hard on it. The actions of the leader will inspire trust in his/her followers.

The leader needs to establish through his/her behaviors, example and congruence, his/her credibility, the influence. You cannot achieve this with an isolated action but with a long way of integrity, ethic, personal congruence and competency. This process could last all the life and is the base for a durable influence that could go beyond the leader´s existence. Hence, we talk about the leader´s legacy.

As I said before without reliability there is no trust, and without the trust of the followers there is no leadership. But before the reliability of the leader, it comes first his/her personal credibility or congruence which makes him/her predictable in front of the followers.

I think reliable leaders are predictable. I would say one of the critical elements of the reliability of the leader is his/her predictability, in other words, others can predict his/her behavior.

When the followers can perceive in the leader stability and determination the trust in the leader emerges.

The leaders that want to be reliable in front of the followers need to set a clear and firm point of view and maintain his/her position without ambiguity. You cannot get the trust of other people by means of appeal you need to do it by means of words and facts. You need to be consistent and coherent with your behavior, with your values and beliefs showing integrity, that´s the only way to gain credibility in front of your teams. If the leader is constantly changing the vision, the instructions or rules he/she will lose reliability and therefore will not be trustable in front of the followers.

In my opinion the best indicator of reliability is the integrity. It is impossible to be reliable as a leader if you are not honest in your work and life. Integrity builds inevitably trust in the other persons. The integrity touches a fundamental aspect of the leader, his/her personality. The personality of the leader is the most decisive factor for the development and growth of the leadership. It is also the area used by the leaders to build influence in the followers. In my view, every reader will have his/her own opinion it is not the talent, the charisma, the intelligence, nor the knowledge the factors defining the leader but his/her personality.

Nowadays where the transparency of some governments and private companies is questioned overwhelmed by the corruption scandals, influence peddling and abuse of power the integrity is the cornerstone for those leaders who aspire to influence in the people. It is true that integrity alone is not enough for achieving the goals and resolving the problems but without it the rest falls down. Therefore integrity is an asset for the leaders.

When we act with integrity people perceive us like reliable persons and therefore we become predictable for them. People know what to expect from us so we reduce the level of ambiguity and uncertainty.

Based on the above could we build, let´s say, an equation for leadership? Let´s try. This equation would start with the coherence what leads to be predictable that in turn creates reliability which at the end inspires reliability in the followers becoming the real source of influence.

On the other hand the people trust in the leader who tells the truth with the focus in their values and beliefs. Therefore, in my view, a fundamental element for the leader to build his/her reliability is the coherence with his/her personal values. Everybody knows that the values define the things in which we believe. The values are essential part of any leader for the effective exercise of leadership. They shape the ethical sense of the person so the framework for the meaning of his/her experiences.

To the extent that the leaders manage to transform their personal values in deliberate actions they reinforce the leadership as they gain coherence. In this way their values act as platforms to renew their goals, take intelligent decisions, face challenges etc.

As a summary I would stress there is no influence as a leader without the reliability the followers confer to him. Without this reliability the leader does not have a base to influence in his/her followers. It is the reliability of the leader what builds the trust. As I said at the beginning of this post the trust is the fuel of leadership.

Perhaps it is not so difficult to manage people

2017-09-08T01:52:00.001-07:00

During my career I have heard many times that it is complicated to lead and manage people. However when an employee reaches certain level of experience and knowledge, let´s say, when reaching the professional seniority, you could set goals to this employee, give some empowerment, facilitating the role of the manager. In these circumstances manage people could not be so complicated unless in a particular organization the obedience is more valued than the intelligence.

The typical conflict between manager and subordinates or collaborators, can appear for different reasons. I could include here the incompetence of both sides, the typical organizational ineptitude and the fact, sometimes very common, the employee is obliged to give up the common sense, his/her consolidated knowledge and his/her professional values. In the environment where his/her obedience is more valued that his/her intelligence you should also value his/her loyalty and the mutual understanding. Of course, not all the employees escape from the effort and need to have a foreman as a manager.

During my extensive experience managing people I have found collaborators within the famous theory X and Y from McGregor. Indeed, it is easier to manage people under the Y, skilled, engaged and committed with the results, than under the X, collaborators that try to escape from the effort. Basically because with the first group you normally have low intensity relationships or frequency once you have set and agree the goals with them. On the other hand, when it comes to the second group you could find collaborators that would do nothing if you don’t tell them to do it. But all of this is a theory so you could share your own experience.

At the same time that knowledge and innovation is consolidating, as well as human capital and continuous learning, we could think the ideal situation to manage people is to set and agree the goals, allow some kind of self-leadership behind these goals and provide the right resources to the teams. In this regard, the manager, more than behaving as a modern foreman, should be focused on managing his/her department or organization.

Very frequently I have heard about management is just about motivating people but sometimes I had the feeling that many employees when perceiving they are encouraged and stimulated could be frustrated and demotivated. Perhaps the “art” consists in motivating without being visible but this is normally very difficult. I would say that with attractive goals the employee with the “Y” profile would head to them more for a mere magnetism than for following the motivating leaders.

Long time ago the employees were considered the arms and legs of the organization. However, nowadays, in my view the employees are really the heart of the organization and this organization will continue beating deeply as long as the leaders work with the passion of the first day and the intensity of the last one.

In many sectors the employees with more expertise have to exceed their managers in technical knowledge and also keep updated in their discipline. And even know what nobody knows!! Many times the decisions of the senior management have to take into account the technical knowledge, the capacity of analysis and the good judgement coming from the more skilled employees, that is, not only human resources, but also intellectual capital.

So what about people management? I think it would be enough in many cases to define correctly the individual goals and trust in the employees with “Y” profile. I would say we would need to simplify using self-management and empowerment, the need to achieve reasonable results. However the management style of every organization responds typically to the “mental models” of the CEO who can bet for the true value of the employees or can be inclined to hold the bosses responsible for the good decisions and blame the subordinates for the failures, in other words, to reduce the importance of the workers.

In summary, I have to say I have heard in many occasions that people management is kind of an art, manage middling subordinates is easier than manage talented people, manage people requires a good head and heart and manage people is complicated, because they have age, genre and character. Generally speaking it is known the difficulty of managing people and this is also more difficult when it comes to talented employees. But in my view this difficulty is never considered based on the cultural environment, with the management models of the organization, with the management style that sometimes doesn’t allow the intellectual capital to be developed adequately. Based on that I would foster cultural environments to develop talent and reward the efforts, maybe all would be easier.

The importance of knowledge management in the Finance transformation

2017-08-16T07:44:00.001-07:00

Over the last 6 years I have been involved in Finance transformation projects related to BPO activities, Shared Service Centre implementation and Migrations & Transitions to stabilize existing Centers of Excellence. The companies where I worked, in different countries, are well known and successful which took the decision to follow this strategic transformation to standardize processes, gain efficiency, reducing operating costs and above all to enhance the value of the finance function as partner of the decision making and future pillar to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The companies act in highly competitive markets with a fierce competition and with clear pressure from shareholders and stakeholders.

This movement in my career was guided for my approach to get a continuous learning and to understand the two sides of the story. I have an extensive experience as Finance Director so my view from the customer perspective was clear in terms of requirements and improvements. Hence I was looking for gaining experience from the supplier perspective to achieve what I call “the whole egg”.

During this period the word Finance Transformation was very common in all meetings regardless the level of the attendees. Every one mentioned this for different activities. The first question I tried to answer was: What do we gain with a Finance Transformation project?

Well, from all my experience in the above mentioned companies and projects, the summary would be as follows:

· Need of less investment of time and resources in all the operational and control processes

· Improve of the quality of the information for the decision making process

· Increase in the specialization of the finance resources

· Finance becomes a business partner

· Finance organization can be focused in value added and strategic activities

· To achieve synergies it is necessary to be focused on the delivery of standardized services and the consolidation while you balance the local and business units needs

The main focus of all the transformation projects is similar in my opinion, apart from the core achievements, the companies would need to be focused in being a learning organization and leverage the knowledge, so I would say to excel in the knowledge management.

A learning organization is skilled in creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge. In other words, a learning organization improves a company´s ability to react to, to adapt to, and capitalize on changes in its internal and external situation. All the projects commented above have a common core element, the knowledge transfer.

In my opinion the learning organization need practices and mechanisms which will:

· Capture what is happening in the business environment

· Enable those who receive the information to relate it to what others are observing and to analyze it in the light of the company´s previous knowledge

· Document both information and analysis and make them available to others at the company and also for subsequent use

· Measure the organization´s rate and level of learning in order to ensure that gains have in fact being made

Probably all the above elements could be considered as part of the knowledge management. I would say knowledge is information combined with experience, interpretation and reflection. Hence knowledge management could be the systematic process for the purpose of collecting and controlling the resources of the employees and abilities just as a company controls its inventories, raw materials and other physical resources.

At this point of the post, I would like to mention other critical element, the information. There are several reasons why we are nowadays talking increasingly about the strategic importance of the information. The technology has given us new possibilities while also forcing us to seek competitive advantage in ways less easily imitated that close physical proximity to customers. What companies can do is to create structures around people, places for interaction in combination with procedures and stored data.

Based on my above mentioned experience a company searching a conscious policy of knowledge management has to ask itself a very simple question: What do we want the knowledge for? The assets of a company run for profit are worth the present value of the effects on expected streams of future payments. When a company makes an investment in a data warehouse it does so in anticipation of improving its profits, meaning, of lowering costs and/or increasing revenues. How do we describe the link between expenditure and benefit? In other words, before we spend our money we should try to agree on why we are doing it.

My observation is the focus is on the structure surrounding people and data. But what tools, what infrastructure is provided for people? What incentives are offered to encourage them to contribute their knowledge? Are successful stories published which show the value of sharing knowledge? The formula should include data, people and structure. The companies should work on its strategy to create something unique and difficult to imitate. As you can imagine this is not supposed to be easy but this is part of the top management role.

I would like to finalize this post commenting on the other critical element, the systems. In my opinion the underlying cause of change is the shift of focus towards core competencies at the heart of the processes and away from the process flows themselves. Based on this the change imposes new requirements on company information systems. I have seen this directly. So, what should be the requirements of these systems? My observation is the systems should provide new languages, categories to identify and measure the company´s competencies and skills. In addition the new applications should emphasize the problem solving and presentation rather than results and transactions. With this regard I have seen different reengineering projects but this traditional view is usually taken to mean gathering traditional company information in newer, cheaper or simpler ways so that it can be made available more rapidly to more people. But if the companies are to be focused on core competencies these are normally based on learning and experience therefore the traditional data warehouse solutions have little to offer in my view. The challenge here is to build up information systems which see that company employees share both their information and their experience and which help them to do so.

As a summary I would like to say as I have seen in my journey so far the systems support the processes, transactional processes, integrated logistics where applicable and work flows. However the challenge, in my opinion, is to achieve systems which support competencies, for example, conversation and learning at work, networks for connecting people, structures to interchange of experience and communication building.

The journey is still in place so hope to see the new developments and how companies are adapting the finance transformation projects to the new demands of the environment, the challenges in the markets where the companies operate and the underlying need for the finance function to be seen as a value driver and the necessary business partner.

Persuasion is another word for selling

2017-07-25T07:29:00.001-07:00

Although it cannot be extrapolated for all the cases, in my opinion, a manager´s job is 60 percent getting it right and 40 per cent putting it across. We, as managers, spend a lot of time persuading other people to accept our ideas and suggestions.

This post is about persuading. You may feel that good ideas should sell themselves, but as you know life is not like that. Everyone resists change and something new is certain to be treated with suspicion, not always of course.

Six rules I have learned about effective persuasion in my career are commented below:

· Define your objective and get the facts. In other words, decide what you want to achieve and why. Gather all the facts you need to support the situation. Very important, eliminate emotional arguments so that you and others can judge the proposition on the facts alone.

· Find out what the other person wants. Never underestimate the natural resistance to change. Bear in mind that such resistance is proportional, meaning, not the total extent to the change. Because, normally, the first questions people ask themselves are how does this affect me? what do I stand to lose? what do I stand to gain?. Ideally you should answer these questions before persuasion can start. Very simple, right? But the key to all persuasion and selling is to see your proposition from the other person´s point of view. Let´s say, have some kind of emotional intelligence. If you can do this you will be able to foresee objections and present your ideas in the way more attractive to him/her. You should try to find out how the other person looks at things and, extremely important, what he/she has to say. Therefore, don’t talk too much, ask questions to find out. Then present your case in a way that stresses the benefits to him/her or at least reduces his/her objections or fears. Like selling a product where the more important argument is the benefit not the features of the product from a consumer/customer point of view.

· If possible, prepare a simple and attractive presentation. Again, emphasize the benefits. Anticipate objections.

· Find some common ground in order to start off with agreement. Avoid defeating him/her in arguments. Help him/her to preserve his/her self-esteem. And, very important, always leave him a way out.

· Show conviction because you are not going to sell anything if you don’t believe in it and communicate that belief. Remember to spell out the benefits. What you propose is of less interest to the person concerned that the effects of the proposal on him/her.

· And finally, I would say, choose the right moment to settle the proposal and get out. Take prompt follow-up action. There is no point in going to all the trouble of getting agreement if you let things slide afterwards.

Based in all the above I concur that persuasion is really just another word for selling. Hope you agree and share your experiences.

Developing people: my modest experience

2017-07-07T08:33:00.001-07:00

If you have led teams in your career it is likely you have thought your “inventory goes up and down in the lift”. Why? Because your main resource, let´s say, your working capital was your people. Money matters but he human beings who work for you and the organization matter even more.

In this post I would like to share my modest experience in developing people. I have always learnt from my prior senior managers, from a pragmatic view, to regard people as an investment. Their value increases as they become more effective in their roles and capable of taking on greater responsibility. In accounting terms, as I have worked as Finance Director and other finance managerial roles for many years, people may be treated like any other asset on the balance sheet, taking into account acquisitions costs and their increasing value as they gain experience. Until here I am not discovering America again!!!

But, which is the manager´s contribution to effective training? In my experience I could mention several ways you can contribute to the effective training of your team, as follows:

· Determine the standards of performance required for each of the roles you control

· Analyze the competences relevant to the achievement of these standards.

· Agree with the individuals concerned what these standards and competences are

· Review with these individuals their performance so that agreement can be reached on any gaps to be filled between what they can do and what they should be able to do.

· Treat every time you give someone an instruction as a training opportunity

· Allow for the learning curve. Don´t expect too much, but do require trainees to improve at a pace which matches their natural aptitudes.

· Train and develop by example. Really important. Give people the opportunity to learn from the way you do things.

· Remember that the core responsibility for training and developing your team rests with you.

· Plan the training of your team in accordance with a regular review of their training needs

People learn mainly through experience. So it is worth spending a little of your time planning the experience of anyone for potential for development.

Planning someone´s experience, means for me, giving him/her extra tasks to do which provide a challenge or extend him/her into a new role. It could be a project which he/she has to complete or he/she could be included in a project team looking at a new development or problem which cuts across organizational boundaries. Projects which enlarge experience in unfamiliar areas are particular useful in my view. Planned experience will work better if it is accompanied by coaching so that those undergoing it can receive the maximum benefit from your expert advice.

The final piece is coaching. The best way to learn how to manage is to manage under the guidance of a good manager. Coaching is an informal but deliberate way of providing this guidance. It should be linked to performance appraisal.

But coaching is a more continuous process. Every time you delegate a task to someone and discuss the outcome you are presented with a coaching opportunity. When you delegate you can provide guidance on how the job should be done. When you discuss progress with your collaborator or when he/she reports back to you, you can ask questions on how well he/she has thought through what he/she is doing, suggest alternative ways of looking at a problem (but don´t provide the solution, je je) and provide constructive criticism if things are not going well.

So, based on all the above, remember, you can help to develop people by discussing higher-level problems with them, involving them in your decisions and increasing their understanding of how to tackle a job senior to the areas for which they are responsible. This is part of my experience so far.

What do we need a leader for ?

2017-05-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

In this post I would like to comment about leaders and leadership sharing my experience in one of the companies I have worked for based on the analysis of what happened and how the local CEO faced the situation.

In the year 2001 my company was involved in the launch of a new product. The worldwide marketing plan required a huge investment in trade and consumer marketing. The Senior Management team had great expectations in terms of volumes and profits. The competitive landscape was very difficult. All the teams were aligned to achieve a common goal. The finance department was ready to support sales and marketing efforts by managing credit limits, inventory levels and working capital investment.

The sales and distribution plans were very aggressive in terms of placement reaching new channels never used before. Financial projections were created assuming different scenarios but in all of them the expected results showed good margins and profitability.

3 months after the launch the results were really disappointed. The sales graphs did not show the expected sales levels with a dramatic downturn in different countries and also on a by customer basis. The local CEO and the international management team were really concerned.

The above situation could be familiar for a lot of the readers of this post. The main difference probably derives from the reaction and behaviour of the local CEO to cope with this situation.

The local CEO reacted very quickly to the downturn in sales. His reaction not only was a reaction of responsibility but also very sensible. Instead of adopting a defensive attitude, he accepted the reality.

One of the main elements of his success was his capacity to communicate with the marketing team as they felt it was their failure. An executive of lower level could have blamed and get away from the problem. But he understood their reaction and communicated with them very openly.

So what is the key message from this? It is fundamental to integrate all departments in a team effort to get the best possible result. The local CEO was able to assume the responsibility and take advantage of the potential errors. He faced the facts as they were using his emotional intelligence. He was very talented to get the best out of his team, helping them to develop and improve. His sincere interest in the others led to create a real sense of loyalty. He fostered a sense of sincerity encouraging all the employees to be open and honest with him. You could discuss with him and tell him you were not in agreement. He did not like cowards. He was especially sensible in assigning the right member of his team to the particular projects. The learning here is, the leader, ultimately, has the responsibility about what to delegate and to whom because if you choose the right person, at the end of the day, it is likely you will succeed. This also shows us the importance of the management of emotions in the leadership to be closer to the success when taking decisions. The emotional intelligence helped the local CEO to find the solution to the failure.

So what he did? Firstly, he assumed the error as his thing and did not blame his team but he considered them as part of the solution. He transformed the emotions into a source of information. The decisions need to incorporate emotions to be real. The good decisions take into consideration the emotions as a sign of respect for the people. The affective results end very close to the effective result. I think, nowadays, effectiveness depends more and more on the affection.

The emotions do not happen by chance, they follow a logical order that activates and deactivate them. They exist, we just need to find and organize them when needed. Obviously this requires some kind of effort. The idea here is to identify the emotions first, then understand them and finally channel them to the action.

In my opinion the leader of the 21^st Century is no longer isolated in concrete areas as now he/she has to intervene in all the processes and is the cornerstone of the example of attitude, as he/she decides and acts, creates values and expectations. It is really the reflection of the change in the organizations.

The effort of the leader consists of understanding how to coordinate the company value in two directions: value creation for the shareholder and added value to the organization through strong policies of internal and external quality able to create quality of life. The increase of productivity is linked to the innovation in the ways of managing and leading the organization. New ways associated to the talent, involved in the creativity, understanding technology as a way for progress and continuous improvement. This task to link with the future has to be managed, from inside, by the leader with the expectation to overcome critical situations.

Lead the organization in the 21^st Century means to manage successfully the competitiveness, trust, quality, culture, knowledge, behaviour, compromise and change.

The importance of the leader lies in the security of his/her behaviours. The 21^st Century requires leaders emotionally stable. The leader needs to create the culture of the team, the culture of the organization, without overshadowing the capacity of each person in the common effort.

It is necessary to foster the direct leadership that impact in the knowledge of each member supporting the leader. This leadership requires compromise with the team, led and managed by the leader so he can inspire, motivate, listen, demand and analyse the decisions in depth, encourage the achievement of goals and cooperate in the development of his/her teams. For all of these it is required a great capacity of communication and adaptation.

The competitive advantage of the emotional leadership is the individualised treatment of the talents and the global knowledge of the activity. You cannot retain a talent if you don’t know the determinants and circumstances around the work. Only this way you can recognise the effort and the employee can be aware of it.

The emotional leader follows his/her people. He does not expect people follow him/her. He/she engages them giving example of coherence. Join the efforts to achieve a common goal and avoid using “we” and “they”. He ensures every employee feels passion for his/her work and for the company they work for.

You might get several learnings from the above. For example, the team is beyond its members. The responsibility has to be shared by all. We need leaders in all the teams and leaders that can train others leaders, and the most important, to teach then to understand none of us is worth more than the sum of all.

I am not your boss but a friend who is always right

2017-04-18T11:15:00.001-07:00

Should we complain and tell our boss what we think about him/her? This post is about this.

In many occasions we are unhappy with our work and with our boss. This situation leads us to consider telling what we think about him/her. But sometimes we need to know in advance what it is advisable to say before making a big mistake.

Talk with full sincerity to our boss, telling him or her all what we think is a very risky relief, above all if we don’t find the right moment, way and place.

Normally, this sincere impulse hastens due to lack of tune or for the permanent conflict with your manager. It might be your boss does not get along with you and you are aware of it.

It is also possible you were not meeting the expectations, he sees you as a threat or you always disagree with him/her.

You could use different strategies depending on the reasons. You can leave the company or you could also survive coping with the situation until you find a new job but you cannot fight this attitude of rejection as if nothing happened. Therefore the solution is to complain or be honest and tell what you really think.

It is true that if the company where you work monitored your performance based only on your achievements you should not be worried about talking honestly and openly. But honesty turns out to be, in many companies, an act of suicide.

A very important advice would be, never do this in front of a big audience. The negative feedback has to be commented in private and the positive in public. This is a rule of thumb.

It is very important to be focused on the objective errors and avoid the personal view. In addition, you should propose your own alternatives and solutions to the potential mistakes of your manager. But you have to take into account that your boss could make the mistakes in particular circumstances and give a positive view to your critics by analyzing how he/she resolved them.

In my experience if an employee has the right skills for a job but shows lack of loyalty it is likely this is more important. So if you doubt it is better not criticizing and get some lessons for the future.

Based on the above the question is what to do to get anything positive? The important thing with your complaint is you don’t have hidden agendas nor has no substance. In addition it should be concrete as you are aiming the things change.

The decision to be honest with our manager entails our arguments have to be based on facts. We have to avoid judgements and interpretations clarifying what are our actual needs. But very important as well is to know how he/she feels with us so we could use the complaint to know what he/she expects from us.

Finally, to be honest does not imply to be fully transparent and tell the first thing that comes to our mind. You need to understand the circumstances and do an objective analysis.

Ideally the perfect situation is when you are fully aligned with your boss so you have discussed openly what you expect from him and what he/she expects from you. This trust is the base for the future relationship and normally leads to a higher performance and mutual satisfaction.

But remember, regardless what I have commented above, there is a second rule of thumb, Never tell your boss what you think about him/her. But it is up to you.

Conflict management

2016-11-18T09:41:00.001-08:00

Who did not find, was in the middle of a conflict or had to resolve one in your professional career? You will not escape conflict in your organization or work environment. In my view it is inevitable. Mainly because the objective, values and needs of groups and individuals in any organization do not always coincide.

In my view, sometimes, conflict may be a sign of a healthy company. Boring agreement on everything is unnatural and debilitating. There should be fight of ideas about tasks and projects and disagreements should not be suppressed. They should come out into open, because is the only way in which you can ensure that the issues are explored and conflicts are resolved. This post is about managing the conflicts or better to say trying to manage the conflicts.

Every reader could have his/her own experience and way of resolving the conflicts he/she was involved or he/she saw in his working environment.

You can use, let´s say, a peaceful co-existence where you aim to smooth our differences and emphasize the common ground. It is well known we are encouraged to learn to live together. There is a good deal of information, contact and exchange of views and individuals move freely between the different teams, for example, between your headquarter and the affiliate or between sales and marketing departments. This is a pleasant ideal but it may not be practicable in many situations.

It is also known that conflict is not necessarily resolved by grouping people together. Improved communications and briefing groups could be a good idea but are useless, in my opinion, if management has nothing to say that people want to hear. And there is also the danger that the real issues, submerged for the moment will surface again in the future.

Other possibility is to get compromise. In this case the issue could be resolved by negotiating or bargaining and neither party wins or loses. In this situation there is no right or best answer. Agreement only accommodates differences. As you can imagine real issues are not likely to be solved.

Based on the above the best approach would be to find a genuine solution to the problem rather than just accommodating different points of view. And as I said before sometimes conflict situations can be used to advantage to create better solutions. This situation has to be generated by those who share the responsibility for seeing that the solutions work. So what would be the sequence of actions in this case? First, those concerned work to define the problem and agree on the objectives to be attained in reaching a solution. Second, the group develops alternative solutions and debates their merits. Third, agreement is reached on the preferred course of action and how it should be implemented.

The conclusion could be that conflict is in itself not to be deplored. It is an inevitable concomitant of progress and change. What is to be disapproved is the failure to use conflict constructively. Effective problem solving both resolves conflicts and opens up channels of discussion and cooperative action. Take this into account in your next situation!!!!

Team building

2016-11-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

In this post I would like to share my experience in one of the most difficult tasks you face as a manager, executive or when you have responsibilities for the results of teams whatever is the level or the environment: team building.

We spend a lot of time leading teams and leading with people in groups. Getting people to work well together is as important as motivating individuals, in my opinion.

Team building is a matter of establishing mutual confidence and trust among all the people working in your team. You should aim to create a feeling, let´s say, of interdependence. In my experience a good team feels shared responsibility for getting results.

A lot of readers, in managerial roles, know very well that people do not necessarily work well together. Personal and interdepartmental rivalries exist in the vast majority of companies. It is likely you agree with me with this. But you need to look for them or they can ruin the most brilliant groups.

So what´s is the point? Good teamwork is essential. To become an effective team builder it is useful to know and understand the behavior of the members of your team.

Normally you can find what I could call formal and informal groups. The first one are groups that are created by the company to achieve a defined purpose and normally are aligned with the organization needs. The second are set up because they have some affinity for one another. In this case the group exists to satisfy the needs of its members.

For me, the ideal situation, would be for both groups to coincide so they will satisfy the needs of both the organization and the individuals in it.

One of the most important things to look for in groups is the status system that may exist within them. If you understand the informal as well as the formal hierarchical order you will be better equipped to deal with problems within the team.

Your aim, and this is really difficult and a stressing task, is to create an effective team. You need to create a vision, engage the members to become cohesive, self-supportive and finally show them where it is going.

But the question is how can we know we have or we are creating a real effective team?

My thought is you should look for some features as follows:

· The atmosphere tends to be informal, comfortable and relaxed.

· The task of the team is well understood and accepted by the members.

· The members listen to each other. Very important, indeed.

· There is disagreement and the reasons are carefully examined. This is essential in my view.

· Most decisions are reached by a kind of consensus.

· Criticism is frequent, frank and relatively comfortable. In other words, there is little evidence of personal attack either openly or in a hidden way.

· When action is taken clear assignments are made and accepted.

· The leader does not, normally, dominate it.

The readers can think other features based on their experience. The above are just mine.

The final ingredient is your capability to lead, in other words, your leadership. The role of the leader is critical, especially nowadays, when we are in times of crisis so it is when the group must get into action fast.

Within this role of leadership you must look for getting cooperation. The members of an effective team cooperate equally will with one another and of course, with the team leader.

But are there methods for team building? This is not an exact science. You should develop your skills based on your experience and by observing other managers or executives, within or outside your organization and learn from them. This will allow you to create your own management and leadership style.

So, in my experience, you need to demonstrate to your team:

· You know where you want them to go

· You know how they are going to get there

· You know what you expect each member of the team to achieve

· And you know what you are doing.

When you have done the above you are ready to:

· Encourage participation in agreeing objectives and targets

· Rotate jobs within your team so that the team members identify with the reams as a whole rather than with their own jobs.

· Ensure that communication flow freely within and between groups

· Encourage informal meetings between your team to resolve problems.

And finally, if you are a member of a team and you want to work effectively within your group you would need as follows:

· Understand the purpose of the team

· Find out what you are expected to contribute

· Analyze your own skills and competences to establish how you might best contribute

· Prepare yourself well before meetings. For example, get your facts and arguments at your fingertips

· Don’t talk too much. Think about this, the art of being a good team member is to know when and how to intervene.

· Assess your own performance as a team member. Ask yourself what you are good and not so good at doing by reference to your successes and failures, and take appropriate action.

And remember, the team makes you and not the opposite ¡¡¡

How things go wrong and how to put them right

2016-10-21T04:14:00.001-07:00

It is likely that a lot of professionals in the different areas of the finance function have experienced the stress when things go wrong. Things go wrong because people do less than they are capable of, misuse their resources or choose an inappropriate time or place in which to do it and normally the situation is misjudged and the wrong action taken.

In this post I would like, again, to share some experiences and suggestions to cope with the situations some people might face in their daily professional activities and even in their personal lives.

First of all, let me remember the well-known and so called Peter´s principle. Dr. Peter suggested that in a hierarchy, individuals tend to rise to the level of their own incompetence. In his experience system encourages this to happen because people are told that if they are doing their current job efficiently and with ease, the job has no challenge and therefore they should be promoted. It is also true, in my view, that this principle has only been accepted as common manner of speaking as it reflects a fundamental problem when assessing potential. We know or we think we know that someone is good at his present job. But does this predicate success in the next move up? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. However we cannot be sure because the skills needed by, for example, a scientist are quite different from those required by a leader of the research team. In other words, technical competence does not necessarily indicate managerial competence.

First thought, can we beat the Peter´s principle for us? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. But with difficulty, of course. Why? Because people don’t usually refuse promotion!! If they do, they become suspect. When you read this post probably you will remember your own experience, your friend or your colleagues, being in the same situation. Am I right? However it is perfectly reasonable to check on what is involved if you are promoted. You should get precise answers to questions on what you will be expected to achieve and more importantly the resources you will be given to achieve it and the problem you will face. If you think these demands are unreasonable discuss the job to see if they can be modified.

In my view, don’t take a job unless you are satisfied that you can do it or at least that you can learn how to do it within an acceptable period of time. And don’t forget to find out if your predecessor failed and if so, you can ask what went wrong so that you can avoid making the same mistakes.

Second thought, can we beat the Peter´s principle for others? Well, if you are in a position of offering a promotion or a new job, you have to take into account the Peter´s principle and how to avoid it. You need to match the capacities of the candidate to the demands of the job. So you need to analysis the skills required. For example, managerial, analytical, technical, communications etc. And then, measure the candidate against each of these criteria. This matching process should identify any potential weaknesses.

A lot of readers will know very well the typical sources of incompetence and it is likely they have seen some typical situations as follows:

· Conservatism, for example, the typical “that’s the way it always worked. We have been market leaders for the last 10 years, why change? Familiar with this?

· Rejecting information, what did you say about our losing market share? I don´t believe. The market research surveys are always inaccurate.

· Indecisiveness, we need to think a bit more about this. We need more information. Let´s call a meeting next week to look at the pros and cons. Familiar right?

· Obstinate persistence, don’t confuse me with the facts. That’s the way is going to be.

· Scapegoating, it´s not us, it´s the rate of exchange. The government policies are killing us.

· Suppression of news, don’t tell them about how well we are doing. They only ask for more money.

· A belief in “mystical” forces, I just feel in my bones we must do this thing. From a CEO I worked with many years ago.

Hence see below my summary about why things go wrong (normally):

· Inability to learn from mistakes

· Pure incompetence through over promotion

· Poor selection, inadequate training

· Over confidence

· Under confidence

· Laziness

· Lack of foresight

Every reader will have their own experiences, anecdotes and clear view about why things go wrong for them or for the companies they work but I am almost sure that some will coincide with the above mentioned. If not, let me know.

Achieving results

2016-09-26T07:12:00.001-07:00

All of us are facing the pressure to achieve results in our professional activities. Achieving results, getting things done, making things happen. That is what management is all about in my opinion.

In this post I would like to take the manager´s view to share some thoughts based on my experience and the learnings I took from this experience.

You can find different kind of managers. For example, those who make things happen, those who watch things happening and, let´s say, those who don’t know what is happening. Ideally the focus should be in making things happen as the best way to succeed.

But let´s consider some questions to be answered:

· Is getting things done simply a matter of personality which some people have and others haven´t? For example, drive, leadership, ambition…

· And if you don’t have the drive, leadership and so forth which it takes, is there anything you can do about it?

· Finally, to what extent is the ability to make things happen a matter of using techniques which can be learnt and develop during your career?

In my view, personality is important. Unless you have determination and drive nothing will get done. But we need to remember that your personality is a function of both nature and nurture. Your experience is the critical element together with education and training.

We cannot change our personality easily but we can develop and adapt it by learning from our own experience and by observing and analyzing other people´s behavior. That’s why is so important to absorb all the best from your superiors and colleagues to create your own management style and become a real achiever.

In terms of the techniques for achieving results, I would mention planning, organizing, delegating, communicating, motivation and controlling. For sure, you can learn all of them. But in my view these techniques are only as effective as the person who uses them. They should be applied in the right way and in the right circumstances. And don’t forget you still have to use your experience to select the right technique and your personality to make it work.

To become a person who makes things happen you have to develop skills and capacities by understanding, analyzing and learning so my recommendation would be as follows:

· Understand what motivates and inspires achievers. For example, the personality they display in getting things done.

· Observe what achievers do. For example, how they operate, what techniques they use

· Analyze your own behavior, just to stress behavior, not personality. Compare it with that of high achievers and think how to improve your effectiveness.

· And very important, learn as much as you can about the management techniques available in every moment. In other words, be updated in all of them.

Probably one of the most difficult things is how to analyze your own behavior. I faced this problem in a lot of occasions. It is no good to analyze your own behavior unless you have criteria against which you can measure your performance. So you have to set standards for yourself and if you don’t meet them, ask yourself why. I have also used this approach many times. The answer should tell you what to do next time. As an example, the basic questions you could ask yourself could be as follows:

· What did I set out to do?

· Did I get it done?

· If I did, why and how did I succeed?

· If not, why not?

The aim is to make effective use of your experience.

Based on all the above the question is what do achievers do? What I have seen in a lot of high achievers and I have tried to replicate in my personal career, are things like these:

· They define to themselves precisely what they want to do

· They are prepared to discuss how things should be done and will listen and take advice. But once the course of action has been agreed they stick to it unless events dictate a change of direction.

· They work hard and work well under pressure.

· They are never completely satisfied with their own performance.

· They normally take calculated risks.

· They are enthusiastic about the task and transmit their enthusiasm to others.

· They are able quickly to sum up situations, define alternative course of actions, and suggest to their collaborators/colleagues what needs to be done.

· And finally, they continually monitor their own and their collaborators performance so that any deviation can be corrected in good time.

As a conclusion, I would say, the process of observation, analysis, and learning will help you to become an achiever. But remember, achieving results is ultimately about making promises, indeed, to others and to yourself, and above all keeping them.

Budgeting

2016-09-11T09:25:00.001-07:00

In this post I would like to share, in all modesty, my experience in one of the critical activities the finance department is in charge: budgeting/forecasting.

Although the vast majority of the finance community is aware or has experienced similar situations or methodology I think it is worth to give some personal insight.

Let´s start from the typical question: Do we need budgets? The normal reply is we do, of course.

Budgets don´t win friends but they influence people. They can be painful to create and agonizing to manage. But they translate policy into financial terms and whether like it or not that is the way in which plans should be expressed and ultimately, performance controlled.

So in my view I can indicate three reasons for the need of budgets:

· To show the financial implications of the plans

· To define the resources required to achieve the plans

· To provide a means of measuring, monitoring and controlling the results against the plans.

However there are also problems. The typical problems you face could be as follows:

· An inadequate basic budgeting procedure. For example, imprecise guidelines, unsatisfactory background data, cumbersome systems, lack of technical advice and assistance to managers and of course, the typical arbitrary cuts by top management. Does this sound familiar to you?

· Lack of accurate forecasts of future activity levels. Very critical in my experience.

· Difficulty in amending the budget in response to changing circumstances.

· The fundamental weakness of basing budgets on past levels of expenditure which are simply added up rather than subjecting the whole of the budget to a critical examination.

· Weakness in reporting or controlling procedures which prevent the budget being used to monitor performance.

You could reduce the above mentioned problems when preparing the budget by using some methodology and discipline in the process, for example:

· Prepare budget guidelines which set out policies on where you want to go and how you want to get there. For example, this could be expressed in targets, for sales production or activity levels, and as an outline of the major marketing and production plans. In addition, the assumptions to be used in budgeting should be given. This could include rates of inflation or increases in the costs and prices.

· Ensure that those responsible for preparing the budgets are given advice and encouragement by the correspondent managers. These “experts” should be there to help, not to blame or threaten!!

· Get people to think hard about their budgets. For example, they should not be allowed just to update the last year´s result actuals. Very typical right?? Wherever there is any choice on how much is spent they should be asked to go back to first principles and justify what they are doing. This is a base for the so called zero base budgeting that I will comment briefly at the end.

· Do not accept any significant increase or even decrease from last year´s budget without an explanation.

· Probe to ensure that budgets submitted are realistic and do not include the typical “cushions”. If you need this, discuss it in advance to get agreement.

· If you are in charge to approve or review the budget do not cut arbitrarily. Give reasons. If you don´t you will foster, the “cushion factor” or the typical “could not care less attitude.

· Finally, update or “flex” budgets regularly especially when activity levels and costs are subject to large variations.

Flexible budgets are a good tool. If it is possible, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, to relate the changes in the revenues and costs to levels of activity, the use of flexible budgets is worthwhile. Budgets are, let´s say, “flexed” by recalculating revenues and costs which vary with activity levels by reference to actual levels so giving an expected level of revenues and costs. The difference between the original and expected levels is normally referred as the activity variance and the difference between expected levels and actual levels is normally referred as the controllable variance. It is on the latter figure where we should concentrate if you want a realistic picture of how costs are performing. There is also the possibility to review the budget periodically during the year to meet changing conditions. Here you will use the well-known rolling budget/forecast and although, in my opinion, it is not as effective as the fully flexible system, it is easier to operate.

The final piece is the budgetary control. A budgetary control procedure is not easy to achieve. You have to work at it and create it based on your needs and goals. There is no problem in designing a system with “elegant” forms and lots of information. The difficulty is in maintaining the scheme as a useful instrument once it has been set up. The encouragement can only come from the top. The CEO/CFO should insist on a rigorous approach to building budgets and a reporting procedure which is used to make things happen the way they want them to happen. And they have to ensure that everyone concerned knows what is expected and is accountable for any failure to perform.

To conclude, some comments on zero-base budgeting. The traditional approach to budgeting tends to perpetuate the commitments of previous years. For example, past levels of expenditure are used as a base from which to project increases or decreases. Only part of the budget is analyzed and normally, the managers concentrate on justifying increases rather than challenging the need for any function or activity in its present form. The priority based budgeting (zero base) requires managers involved in budgeting to re-evaluate all their activities in order to establish their relative priority and decide whether they should be eliminated or funded at a reduced, similar or increased level.

Zero base budgeting is not the panacea and it has often failed because companies have introduced overelaborate procedures which have sunk almost without trace in a sea of paperwork. So here the emphasis, in my experience, should be on the value in getting priorities right and ensuring that costs and benefits are thoroughly reviewed to the advantage of all concerned.

It is likely some of the readers are currently in their annual budget exercise so Happy budgeting!!!

Troubleshooting

2016-08-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

No matter what you do, things will sometimes go wrong. For those working in multinational organizations and even in small/medium companies and depending on your position, manager, senior manager, etc you will often be called upon to put them right or to employ other people to do it for you.

In this post I would like to comment on the methodology I have applied in different situations where things were really wrong. Obviously the person facing the problem will know better the company, the environment and the circumstances but I think you will recognize some pattern to be used.

Troubleshooting requires some kind of diagnosis ability, to size up the difficulties. Let´s say, know-how, to select the required solution and decide how to implement it and finally a reasonable level of managerial skill to put the solution into effect.

So first, you need to divide the process in parts as follows:

· Planning

· Diagnosis

· Solution

You could use, depending on the level of the problem or your company policy, management consultants. Although I am not against this I think it is worth to try to do it on your own in the first instance. At the end of the day, if you are working on the multinational environment you should be familiar, to some extent, with the methodology they use and on top of that your knowledge of your company is deeper.

The typical approach to be followed would be as follows:

· Analysis of the present situation. What happened and why

· Development of alternative solutions to the problem

· Decision as to the preferred solution, stating the costs and benefits of implementing it

· Defining the method of proceeding. How and over what time scale should the solution be implemented, who does it and with what resources. For example, if a staged implementation is preferred, the stages will be defined and a plan worked out.

In my view, the most important thing to do at the planning stage is to define the problem, clarify the objectives and terms of reference. A problem defined is a problem half solved. And it is the difficult half. The rest should follow quite naturally if an analytical approach is adopted.

Once you know the problem you can define what you want done and prepare terms of reference for those who are conducting the investigation.

Diagnosis means finding out what is happening, the symptom, and then digging to establish why it is happening, therefore the cause. Your skills will allow you to dissect the facts, sort out what is relevant to the problem and refine it all down until it reveals the crucial pieces of information which show the cause of the problem and point its solution. During the process of diagnosis it is needed you remain open-minded. Listen and observe, but suspend judgement until you can arrange all the facts against all the opinions.

Base your diagnosis on analysis of the factors likely to have contributed to the problem, for example, people, systems, structure and circumstances. And finally develop your checklist.

My standard checklist is as follows:

People

1. Have mistakes being made? If so, why? For example, is it because the team is badly managed or trained in the topic causing the problem?

2. If management is at fault, was the problem one of system, structure or even the managers themselves?

3. If the people doing the job are inadequate why were they selected in the first place?

Systems

1. To what extent are poor systems or procedures to blame for the problem?

2. Is the fault in the system themselves? For example, are they badly designed or inappropriate?

3. Or is it the fault of the people who operate and manage the systems? In this case we need to find out the circumstances leading to the situation.

Structure

1. How far has the company or management structure contributed to the problem?

2. Do people know what is expected of them? Very typical question, indeed.

3. Are activities grouped together logically so that adequate control can be exercised over them?

4. Are managers and senior managers clear about their responsibilities for maintaining control and do they exercise these responsibilities effectively? It is likely this is familiar to many readers!!!

Circumstances

1. To what extent, if any, is the problem a result of circumstances beyond the control of those concerned? For example, have external economic pressures or changing policies had a detrimental effect? Sometimes this is the issue.

2. If there have been external pressures, has there been a failure to anticipate or to react quickly enough to them. Very typical situation as well.

3. Have adequate resources, for example, people, funding and materials, been made available and if not, why not?

You can create your own checklist, of course, as it will help you to face successfully the final part, the solution.

The diagnosis should point the way to the solution. But this may still mean that you have to evaluate different ways of dealing with the problem. There is no one best way only a choice of different alternatives. You need to narrow them until you reach the one which, let´s say, on balance, is better than the others.

Avoid being too theoretical. Take into account the circumstances, including the ability of people available to deal with the problem. Your recommendation should be practical in the sense that it can be made to work with resources which are readily available and within acceptable timings. You should make clear not only what needs to be done but how it is to be done. Assess costs and benefits and demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the costs.

And finally take care when you apportion blame to individuals. They could be victims of poor management, poor training or circumstances beyond their control. Their help may be essential in overcoming the trouble. It is unwise to destroy their confidence or their willingness to help.

To summarize, your recommendation have to be realistic, phased in without undue disruption and without spending more time and money that is justified by the results.

Controlling

2016-07-21T07:35:00.002-07:00

One of the main activities within the finance function is the controlling area. In the current scenario of uncertainty it is even more important to focus on the effective control.

In this post I would like to share some practical elements I have applied in my finance managerial roles so far.

First of all, what do we need to control? Basically, we are seeking to control two things, inputs and outputs and the relationship between them, in other words, the productivity or performance.

Let´s remember the well -known Murphy´s two laws: if anything can go wrong it will, and of the things that can´t go wrong some will.

The aim of good control is to protect your plans from the operation of these laws as far as possible, to detect trouble spots before they appear, to prevent those accidents which are just waiting to happen. As we know, prevention is better than cure.

Control is relative. It does not deal with absolutes, only with the difference between good and not so good performance. The basis of control is measurement. It depends on accurate information about what is being achieved. This is then compared with what should have been achieved and with what has been achieved in the past. But that is only the starting point. Good control also identifies responsibility and points the way to action.

In my experience if you want to exercise good control you need to:

· Plan what you aim to achieve

· Measure regularly what has been achieved

· Compare actual achievements with the plan

· Take action to exploit opportunities revealed by this information or to correct deviations from the plan

On the other hand control is not only a matter of putting things right. It also has a positive side, for example, getting more or better things done on the basis of the information received.

A good control system is not easy to set up. Let me comment two essentials as follows:

· To set appropriate and fair targets, standards and budgets. In my experience this may be difficult where the scope for quantification is limited or if the circumstances make forecasts unreliable.

· To decide what information is crucial for control purposes and design reports which clearly convey that information to the rest of departments and can use it to point the way to action. This also produces problems. Too many control systems generate a surfeit of indigestible data which go to the wrong people and are not acted upon. We can have too little information but there is also such a thing as information overkill. There is a tendency for some people to report good results and cover up poor results. In any case, the figures may not tell the whole story. Is this familiar for you? For sure !!

There are in my opinion some steps to be followed if you want to achieve good control. Every organization or manager may have their own but for me are critical:

· Decide what you want to control

· Decide how you are going to measure and review performance

· Use ratio analysis or other analysis you consider appropriate to make comparisons and to identify variations and problems

· Set up a control system

· Manage by exception.

For me the control system is one of the most critical. So, the question is, what do we need from a control system? The basic requirement is reports that clearly identify areas of good and bad performance so that appropriate action can be taken. At higher levels exception reporting can be adopted so that significant deviations can be highlighted. Overall summaries of performance against the plan and trends will also be necessary at this level, but these could disguise significant underlying deviations which would be pointed out in an exception report.

So what should the reports contain?

· Measurements which are accurate, valid and reliable. Permit a direct and easy comparison between planned and actual performance

· Analyze trends, comparing one period´s performance with that of the previous period or of the same period the previous year and where appropriate, summarizing the year to date position. We are familiar with this as it is very common in the multinational environment.

· Be given to the person who is responsible for the activity concerned

· Arrive promptly, in time to allow the necessary action to be taken

· Provide succinct explanations of any deviations from plan.

What about the measurements?

Measurement is a good thing but all figures need to be treated with caution. They may conceal more that they reveal.

See below the most common weaknesses you need to look for:

· Non-representative reporting, for example, data selected which don’t cover the key issues, disguise unfavourable results or over emphasize favourable performance

· Not comparing like with like, the typical apples and pears syndrome. For example, a trend or projection which does not take account of changing or new factors which have altered or will alter the situation since the base data were collected.

· Misleading averages, averages do not always tell the whole story. They may conceal extremes in performance which are significant

· Unintentional errors, for example, simple mistakes in calculation, presentation or even observation.

· Measurements out of context, as almost any single measure is influenced by other measures. Figures in isolation may not mean very much. You have to know about relationships and the underlying influence.

Finally I would like to comment on the management by exception. Management by exception frees you to concentrate on the things that matter.

Deciding what constitutes an exception is a useful exercise in itself. It means selecting the key events and measures which will show up good, bad or indifferent results and indicate whether or not performance is going according to plan. The chosen indicators or ratios can be studied so that the significance of the changes or trends is readily understood. More important, the possible causes of deviations can be analyzed and kept in mind.

Most of us have come across your boss or senior management members who seem to have the almost magic facility for studying a mass of figures and immediately spotting the one really important deviation or the item that does not ring true. It sometimes seems to be pure instinct but of course, in the vast majority of occasions, it is not. This is based in practice of the management by exception discipline. Your experience and analytical skills will help you to find out what actually constitutes the normal performance to know key indicators and look for them.

I recommend you to develop this skill as the effort of acquiring it is well worthwhile.

As a summary of all the above mentioned just to comment that in controlling the input and output and hence productivity, an overview is essential. It is not good concentrating on inputs, mainly expressed as costs unless you look at the benefits arising from these expenditures and the effectiveness with which the costs have been incurred. Cost benefit and cost effectiveness studies are an essential part of the control process as well.

Managing your boss

2016-07-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

I write this post with a profound respect for all the bosses I have had in my career so far. Some of them were very good, good, bad and even very bad. But from all of them I have learnt a lot of things that have contributed to my management style.

This post is about sharing my experience to manage your boss. If you want to achieve results, innovate and get on you have to learn how to manage your boss. If you really believe something needs to be done and you cannot do it without the consent of your boss you have to work out how you are going to manage him.

So what do you need to know? For example:

· Get agreement from him on what you want to do

· Deal with him over problems

· Impress him so that he is more likely to accept your proposals and to place his trust in you.

The above is not exact science but will help you in the vast majority of situations.

Getting agreement from your boss is in many ways like getting agreement from anyone else. You need to be good at case presentation and at, let´s say, persuasion. To put some examples of the things you would need to do (everyone could have a personal list based on his/her own experience, of course):

· Find out what he expects

· Establish how he likes things presented to him. For example, does he like long written reports? Or does he prefer a succinct proposal on one side of one sheet of paper?

· Get to know how he likes things done. How? By observation and by asking other people. If something goes wrong, choose the right moment and ask him/her advice on how to do it better next time (just a comment, most people love being asked of their advice!!)

· Find out the right time to approach him. For example, some people are at their best first thing. Others take time to warm up!! Check of his mood in advance, very important indeed. His/her assistant can help.

· Decide whether you want support. For example, you may be able to make a better case on a one for one basis.

· Don’t go in for open confrontation if you cannot get your own way at first. For example, get your boss to agree with what he is prepared to agree and then turn to the problem areas. Emphasize joint responsibility.

· Leave him an escape route, in other words, a way open to consent without his having to climb down. Don’t beat him into the ground, you know why? You might win this one but what about the next time?

· Don’t overwhelm him with your ideas. For example, don’t expect to achieve everything at once. Tackle one important thing at a time.

· If your boss comes up with a better idea than yours, recognize and accept it. Everybody likes recognition!!

· If you cannot convince him first time remember that he/she is the boss. He/she makes the ultimate decisions.

On the second thing, how we could deal with problems? For example, things are going wrong or you have made a mistake. You need the help of your boss in sorting out a problem. What approach should you adopt? Some ideas:

· Keep him informed. Never let him be taken by surprise. For example, prepare him in advance for the bad news. Give him hope!!

· If something has gone wrong explain what has happened, why it has happened (but, very important, with no excuses) and would you like to do about it. Emphasize you are seeking his views on what you propose as well as his agreement.

· If you think he is to blame, “never say” I told you so. If you do, you will probably make an enemy for life!!

· If you admit responsibility try to stop your boss keeping on at you. For example, steer him away from recriminations into a positive attitude on what you can together do to solve the problem.

Your purpose is not solely to impress your boss. But you will get more done and get on better if you impress him. Your boss needs to trust you, to rely upon you and to believe in your capacity to come up with good ideas and to make things happen. So what to do to succeed in impressing your boss? Do something as follows:

· Always be frank and open. Admit mistakes. Never lie or even shade the truth.

· Aim to help your boss to be right. Recognize that you exist to give him support.

· Don’t trouble him unnecessarily with your problems.

· Provide him with protection when required!! Loyalty can be an old fashioned virtue, but you owe it to your boss. Because if you cannot be loyal to him you should be out from under as quick as you can.

Conclusion could be to come up with solutions not problems. Your boss, normally, wants answers not questions and think in something very important, why make an enemy of your boss when you could have him as friend? Sometimes is really difficult depending on the situations, own personalities, working environment, corporate culture etc but remember, for me, success is the happiness of your boss!!!

Good luck !!!!

Delegating, is it really simple ?

2016-06-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

You can’t do everything yourself so you have to delegate. At first sight delegation looks simple. Just tell someone what you want him to do and then let him do it. But there is more than that.

It may be you would wish to delegate everything except what your collaborator cannot do. But you cannot then withdraw. You have arranged for someone else to do the job but have not passed on the responsibility for it. You are always accountable to your superior for what your collaborator does. Hence, something very important and frequently forgotten, you can’t delegate responsibility.

Delegation is really difficult. It is perhaps the hardest thing that managers have to do. The problem is getting the balance right between delegating too much or too little and between over or under supervision. When you give someone something to do you have to make sure that it gets done. And you have to do that without breathing down his neck, wasting your time and his, and getting in the way. There has to be trust as well as guidance and supervision.

But, what are the real advantages of delegation? I will outline just a few, well-known between experienced managers and directors:

· It relieves you of routine and less critical tasks

· It frees you for more important work, for example, planning, organizing, motivating or controlling.

· It extends your capacity to manage

· It reduces delay in decision making as long as authority is delegated close to the point of action

· It allows decision to be taken at the level where the details are known

· It develops that capacity of your team to make decisions, get things done and take responsibility. This is a very important one in my personal view as it builds, normally, a strong team.

Based on the above the next questions would be: when to delegate, how to delegate and what to delegate.

In my experience, you should delegate when you have more work than you can effectively carry out yourself, when you cannot allocate sufficient time to your priority tasks and if you want to develop your collaborators. And finally, when the job can be done adequately by you collaborator.

When you delegate you have to decide what to delegate. To whom you delegate, for example, choosing who does the work. You also need to decide how to inform or brief your collaborator, guiding him and monitor his performance.

You delegate tasks you don’t need to do yourself. You are not just ridding yourself on the difficult, tedious or unrewarding tasks. Neither are you trying to win for yourself an easier life. Delegation will, in fact, make your life more difficult, but also more rewarding.

Clearly you delegate routine and repetitive tasks which you cannot reasonably expected to do yourself as long as you use the time you have won productively.

You also delegate specialist tasks to those who have the skills and know-how to do them. You cannot do it all yourself. Nor you can be expected to know it all yourself. You have to know how to select and use expertise. There will be no problem as long as you make it clear what you want from the experts and ask them to present it to you in a usable way. As a manager you must know what specialists can do for you and you should be knowledgeable enough about the subject to understand whether or not what they product is worth having.

Ideally, the person you choose to do the work should have the knowledge, skills, motivation and time needed to get it done to your complete satisfaction. Frequently, however, you will have to use someone who has less than ideal experience, knowledge or skills. In my opinion in these cases you should try to select an individual who has the intelligence, attitude and above all the willingness to learn how to do the job with help and guidance. This is how people develop and the development of your team should be your conscious aim whenever you delegate. You are looking for someone you can trust. You don’t want to over supervise so you have to believe that person you select will get on with it and have the sense to come to you if he/she is stuck or before he/she makes a bad mistake.

So the final question is, how do you know whom you can trust? The best way, in my experience, is to try people out first on smaller and less important tasks, increasingly giving them more scope so that they learn how far they can go and you can observe how they do it. If they get on well their sense of responsibility and powers of judgement will increase and improve and you will be able to trust them with more demanding and responsible tasks.

To summarize, the critical elements are guidance and development. Delegation not only helps you to get your work done but also it can be to improve your collaborator’s performance and therefore your trust in his/her ability to carry out more responsible work. But don’t forget to give instruction, training and development as part of the process of delegation.

Profit Improvement

2016-06-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

Business and managers don’t earn profits they earn money. Profit is an abstraction from the true, underlying movement of cash in and cash out. It could be argued that profit is the result not the objective of an efficient management.

On its own, as shown in a balance sheet, is not necessarily an accurate measure of the success of a business. Profit figures are normally influenced by factors quite distinct from the trading performance of a company. These for example could include how research and development is treated in the accounts, how stocks and work in progress are valued and how the flow of funds resulting from investments and realization of investments are considered.

If we simplify, all you have to do in business is to make some stuff and sell it to someone else for more than you paid for it. Indeed we are in business to make money. Money earned with ethic, integrity and focused on the social responsibility.

Profit improvement is about increasing the flow of money into the business and reducing the flow of money out. It is not about maximizing an abstraction called “profit” subject to many different influences.

So, the question is, which are the most important factors affecting profit improvement? Experts working on managerial roles know very well: sales, costs and effectiveness.

The maximization of sales revenue depends first on good marketing. There are two approaches to marketing. One is to assess the market in terms of what existing and potential customers will buy. This means an analysis of the existing wants and buying patterns along with possible future needs. The other is to assess the scope for creating wants which does not exists at the moment, by developing, for example, new product or services. Good marketing also ensures that prices match what customers can be persuaded to pay with the objective of maximizing contribution to profits and direct overheads. Maximizing profit means getting the right balance between high margins and high sales volume.

The second factor is the cost. Cost, after all, does not exist by itself. It is always incurred. What matters therefore is not the absolute cost level but the rates between efforts and their results.

The approach to cost reduction should therefore be to distinguish between those which are producing results and those which are not. Indiscriminate focus and attack to all costs might be counter-productive. On a selective basis it may be better to cut something out in one go and not series of marginal cost reductions. Why trying to do something cheaply if actually it should not be done at all.

On the third factor just to say the objective should be effectiveness rather than just efficiency. To do the right things rather than merely to do things right. This is something which is well-known.

But what would be the areas to be focused on? On my view, as follows:

· Productivity- getting more for less, for example, return on investment, or manpower, output per head.

· Finance- tightening credit policies, cracking down bad debts, controlling quantity and settlement discounts, optimizing cash holdings etc. But most importantly the management team has to work as a real team in all finance areas that might affect the business before taking any decisión.

· Inventory, very typical- keeping the amount tied up in working capital to the minimum consistent with the need to satisfy customer demand.

· Buying-ensuring competitive bids are obtained for all new or renew contracts, specifying to buyers how they should do to get good terms, resisting the temptation to over-order and having clearly laid down policies on mark-ups.

Profit improvement should be a continuous exercise. It should not be left until crisis forces you to think about it. Start with an analysis of your current situation by doing a typical checklist. Look at the whole product range for each market and assess the relative profitability and potential of all products and markets. Use, for example, 80/20 rule to suggest the 20 percent of your product/markets which generate 80 percent of your profits. Concentrate on maximizing the effectiveness of the 20 percent of areas where the impact will be greatest.

Identify those factors within the business which are restraining its potential and, very well-know as well, convert into opportunity what everybody considers dangers. So build on strengths rather than weaknesses. Then look ahead. Project trends, anticipate problems and, where needed, innovate so that your company can challenge the future rather than being overwhelmed by it.

Your checklist should include:

· corporate analysis

· strategic plans

· marketing

· product mix and development

· sales

· distribution

· production

· buying

· inventory

· productivity

· people

· finance

Finally remember, the best business survivors are, (honestly I don’t think this view will be changed in the near future), first, those which can deliver their products at the lowest cost and/or second, those which have the highest differentiated position therefore having the product which the customers perceive most clearly as being different from the competition to satisfy their needs.

Nuevas entradas/New posts in the blog

2016-06-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Dear followers, I will start publishing new posts more regularly from now on. These new posts will be published mainly in English. You can use the translator to read them in your preferred language.

The scope of the blog is now broader including different managerial topics apart from the strategic management which remains the main subject.

Hope you enjoy it and the posts are helpful for your area of interest.

Many thanks for your loyalty over the past 5 years

Best regards

Jesus

Improve your strengths to achieve success

2016-01-10T10:15:00.001-08:00

Companies have to increase the performance and productivity taking advantage of the strengths of employees. To do that the senior management has to talk more with the employees, listen and devote more time to them. If we want to have innovation, productivity and the commitment of the employees, the leadership has to talk with the teams because if they are too busy to do it, they no longer can be considered leaders.

In my opinion we have to focus on the areas of strength and not in the weaknesses, as lot of companies do, because there are no opportunities. A proposal would be to do weekly performance reviews instead of the typical ones done on an annual basis using simple questions and on real time.

Before starting to know our natural strengths we have to bear in mind that the strength is not something we do better but something that strengthens us, in other words, it is an activity that gets you stronger.

Based on the above we should ask ourselves as follows:

· What task or function makes me feel better?

· What really attracts me, what I like to do the most?

· Do you feel happy, full of strength after doing this performance?

With the above questions we could pull out our comparative advantages with regard to other persons and therefore we could strengthen them.

There are a lot of companies that base their policies in overcoming the weaknesses. However, in my opinion, the view should be a little bit different: a person will learn and grow more in those areas where he/she is already strong.

Nowadays is typical to ask the employee if he/she is focused on the customer, which actually has no sense. This question should be posed directly to the customer. Therefore this information is not useful.

The real change will be to convince the companies that all assessments have to be done at local level not at corporate level which is the most common approach. The new technologies will allow the companies to know individually every member of the team much better and quicker. This information will make possible to connect, develop, train and place every single employee in the role where he/she is stronger and this will also become in more productive and committed teams.

As a summary, if the companies want to achieve more success they should know deeper the talent of their employees to increase efficiency and productivity because it is commonly known that you grow more where you are stronger. The message, therefore, is the team leads have to know very well the members of their teams to place them in the role more suitable to their strengths.

What is the most effective management style ?

2015-07-04T06:26:00.001-07:00

The best leader is the one who adopts the management style most suitable for each situation, each context, each person or group and for each organization.

From the beginning of my career and through all different roles I held in different organizations one of my priorities has always been to develop the best management style. I read a lot about the subject and I also learned a lot from all the people I had the opportunity to work with at all levels: senior management, team members and peers.

However the examples were really different and there was no pattern showing me the critical success factor as a leader.

I have seen different styles, from democratic to authoritarian in the beginning to directive, supportive, participative and goals-oriented in the last 10 years.

I have also seen that in the last years new management styles have emerged such as charismatic, transformational etc.

Leadership is really an endless source of study and analysis due to the important role played in the organization performance and in the achievement of the goals and results.

Assuming no person is identical, having different needs and motivations, that teams and persons also experience different phases of development and we are absorbed by constant changes, I believe the most correct, above all for me, management style is what Blanchard called situational management style or situational leadership. According to Blanchard the most effective leadership is the one which adapts to the team members in every situation, in other words, a management style suitable with the needs of the team.

The situational management style is based on keeping a balance between the two behaviors exerted by a leader to adapt to the level of development of his/her team members.

These behaviors are as follows:

1. Managerial behavior, which defines the roles and tasks for the collaborators and also points out what, how and when they have to perform them monitoring the results.

2. Supportive behavior, focused on the development of the team, fostering the participation in the decision making process, uniting, supporting and motivating the whole team.

As we believe in the people development and we also want to achieve good results in our management careers I think the key to match both interests is to apply a management style suitable in each context, each person and each situation, as I commented at the beginning of the post. Based on that, we, as leaders, have to pay attention to all what happens around us, detecting the changes, movements and emotions experienced by our collaborators and team members.

This adaptation of the management style to the each situation, as required, does not mean, to be a different person, nor losing your personal style, simply means to perform different roles led by the person in the role instead of being led by the environment, the organization or the others.

As a conclusion, the leader should never forget, whatever is his/her management style in each occasion, has to be supported by, what I call, the basic pillars of leadership: authenticity, integrity, coherence, humility, leading by example and foster new leaders.