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Glen Wakeman | All Rights Reserved © 2017
GLEN WAKEMAN
01If You Want Excellence, Celebrate Successes.
All achievers are hopeful and optimistic about their next great
success. It is part of our DNA. But a dose of objective reality is
a useful antidote to anything close to a delusional grasp on
your progress. So here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Use Scorecards to keep track
of the key variables that drive
your company.
A scorecard is a management tool that
synthesizes key data like growth, operations,
talent and financials in one easy to read page
and gives you a snapshot of your company’s
performance. It can provide you a quick and
easy to understand 360 degree view of your
company. It is entirely data driven and can
help you get into the habit of making key
decisions with data as opposed to your gut
feel, aka, opinions. You don’t need to know
everything to navigate a start-up; but you do
need to master the important things that are
essential to your company’s performance.
The best way to use it is to review it daily,
share with your team in staff meetings and
realign priorities as you develop your
business.
1 Perform external research to
keep you current with
competitors, customers and
trends.
Don’t become so internally focused that you
forget there is a big world out there with
creatures that want to eat your lunch, want
more from you or are just plain changing.
Try to learn something every day about the
environment you operate in and you stand
a much better chance of adapting and
flourishing. Looking at other’s websites,
getting exit interviews of customers, and
attending conferences are all practical ways
to assess trends in your segment.
Reposition your activities if necessary but
using external data to inform your decision
making will help you keep your value
proposition sharp.
2
Review financial statements on a regular basis to make sure you
have a handle on your profits.
It’s all about the green at the end of the day. So make sure you know what’s going on with yours.
Don’t guess. Use financial tools. Focus on the 3 key drivers of your success: revenues,
expenses and cash flow. Get daily reports if you can but review your numbers monthly. Look for
the unexpected changes in cash, revenues or expenses, both good and bad. There is plenty of
help out there like this (link).
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GLEN WAKEMAN
To delegate doesn’t mean to abdicate. You are still on the hook
for the results. Make sure that you can contain risks if need be
and be wise about when and whom you empower.
Establish authorities for key
decisions and key people.
Knowing who should decide what, and when
is a key task of a leader. Be thoughtful about
your delegations because they can be
disruptive, empowering, risky, or energizing. A
lot of it has to do with the framework you
establish and the understanding of the person
being delegated to. A responsible step would
be to make sure the person is not only
capable to decide but also understands
clearly what you are asking them to decide.
Always ask them to repeat back to you the
problem, solution and expected outcome to
avoid surprises.
1
Review reports on all facets
of your company so that the
surprises are as few and far
in between as possible.
An ex-President once said ‘trust but verify”.
That’s a key component of the delegation
formula. Make sure you are getting the
results you want, from the risk you are
taking by checking to see if the decisions
are showing up in the numbers. If so,
reward. If not, reassess. Waiting doesn’t
make things better.
2
Perform audits on a routine basis to double-check whatever you are
reading or being told.
It’s great to kick the tires but it’s better to do it systematically and independently. Audits are great
for that. They can go where you can’t and help you see things more clearly. They are invasive to
be sure, but politeness goes a long way in making people comfortable. Be thoughtful about
when you use them because they can convey a lack of trust. But hey, don’t you want to know
what is really going on? Audits can also help with accountability and ownership of issues. But
never forget that you are dealing with people and therefore you must listen and talk.
Make sure to reinforce ownership by having feedback sessions with individuals and teams on a
routine basis.
They all need to hear from you. If you can get this right, you can raise your company’s IQ points
by the hundreds, have more satisfied employees and a better run company.
Don’t try to do everything by yourself because there is plenty of help out there like this (link).
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GLEN WAKEMAN
Define your 10 commandments
Don’t forget to live by them. You are always on stage and
always being watched. So be careful of the rules you make and
the example you set. Everyone will copy your lead.
Articulate expected
behaviors.
Always hold yourself to the highest standards
but don’t be afraid to also be human and allow
yourself to make mistakes. Just for fun, check
your driver’s license and if it doesn’t say you
are The All-mighty, you now have a license to
make mistakes. In order to mitigate the
impacts of those mistakes on your company’s
culture, express what you expect from others.
They need to do more than just try to be you.
Challenging people can really bring out the
best in most so don’t be afraid to ask others to
comply with X, Y, Z, professional standards.
When you explain your expectations to others
you give them a real chance to comply. Staff
meetings, one-on-ones and town halls are all
good forums to utilize. Just be clear and to the
point about what you think is good and bad
and why.
1 Treat the values like the
Constitution.
They should be a source of strength and
pride for your organization. They should
provide for continuity and also adapt to the
times, now and again. Revisit your values
each year with your team and make sure
they remain relevant. If so, carry on and if
not, make adjustments. Dedicate a session
to just this to ensure there is depth to the
discussion and importance to the topic.
Don’t underestimate the importance of
creating a coherent company culture. You
want people to be at their best, especially
when you aren’t around. Fortunately there
are tools like this (link) to help you learn
more about this subject.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
Your vision, strategies and key tactics provide a basic framework for decision making and
therefore enable you to delegate to your staff. Fully informed employees are easier to empower
and are more effective. As you control information flow, you should use it to guide your teams to
the outcomes you seek.
Set a common definition
of success.
Success can take a number of forms and look
different to each team member; this can
cause confusion and confusion is not a good
ingredient in the delegation recipe. So you
need to be clear about how all of the pieces fit
together. Most employees operate at a tactical
level (tasks) so you want them to have a clear
framework for their choices. The clearer the
definitions the better the result. For example
you may want to emphasize profit targets,
customer satisfaction, customer acquisition,
productivity, market share or employee
satisfaction as key measures of success.
Each requires a different focus and will
produce different behaviors. Make sure you
can articulate what it means to your company
as it will provide a basic framework for
decision making, delegation and
empowerment.
1 Give direction.
This may sound like the antithesis of
delegation but in fact delegation and
direction need to peacefully co-exist. Some
situations, like a crisis, can call for an
immediate action. If necessary, you can tell
folks to just do it, provided that you explain
why. You may have access to information
they don’t and this will help them
understand and get better. Good delegation
skills allow for directives in the right
circumstances. It’s about balance.
2
Engender participation whenever appropriate.
Get all of your employees in the game early and often by seeking their input on key decisions.
This will increase the capabilities of your teams, allow you take on more complex tasks than you
could do by yourself and help promote growth and all of the benefit of a vigorously healthy
organization. The balance is entirely based on situations and will require some agility from you. If
you’ve created the correct framework for understanding, utilize direction sparingly, and promote
engagement at all levels, you will optimize the IQ of your organization.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
Company advocates can promote growth and should be developed alongside your brand. A
great place to develop advocacy is right in your backyard. Your community is a direct economic
beneficiary of your company’s work and can become a strong asset for your business. Through
social media and word of mouth, it can reach large and important audiences easily and quickly.
Give it the same attention you give your ad campaigns.
Seek testimonials from
customers, employees
and other stakeholders.
Let your core constituents carry your message
to their social networks and friends by
creating programs that benefit them. Give
them a forum to talk about the great things
you are doing and put it on YouTube, Twitter,
Snapchat or others. Corporate social
responsibility can be a profitable endeavor if
you design programs that address the
intersection of interests between you staff,
employees and community. Look at the needs
of each group (mentoring, financial literacy,
health awareness, etc.) and find common
touch points that appeal to all. Then, ask your
employees to build a program around it within
a certain budget. Try it. If promoted correctly,
the programs will attract media interest and
offset the expense of building your brand.
1
Leverage media
coverage in lieu of
spending ad dollars.
Invite the media to the party. Events like
education, construction projects, school
volunteerism, resource sustainability,
healthcare activities (to name a few) can
easily fill column inches in newspapers or
minutes of programming time on TV that
you would otherwise have to pay for. You
may get a 10x return on your investment in
addition to the satisfaction of doing the right
thing.
2
Improve employee satisfaction by building pride in your
company.
Everyone wants to be proud of the company that they work for and CSR programs can be a
good source of pride for your employees. This sense of pride can create a level of engagement
that can carry through the office into the customer experience and the numbers. Your employees
in turn will become your strongest of brand advocates and help create a virtuous cycle of growth.
Harvest their ideas and commitments by providing forums for volunteerism and you will grow
your reputation as well as your revenues.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
The design of your organizational structure can have a big impact on your company’s
performance as it will enable or disable communication and action. You should contemplate your
personal leadership style and key company challenges when deciding on your design in order to
optimize the match of needs and outputs.
Hierarchical designs
work best for a directive
style.
If you want to control your company from the
center, a hierarchical design wherein specific
accountabilities and authorities can be clearly
articulated is the way to go. It’s clear, easy to
communicate and you can decide how much
or how little you want to empower others to
decide. The downside is that it’s harder to
delegate, can be slower to implement
changes and your better employees may not
like it. But hey, you’re the boss so it’s up to
you.
1 Go with a Flat design if
Speed is your goal.
Managerial review cycles take time and
with a flat organization, you really don’t
have a built in, 1 over 1 type of process. So
you get the speed in decision making but
without someone to double check, you may
incur a higher risk. Empowerment is easier
and employee engagement should also
trend up. But coordination can be difficult
and you will need to create forums for
collaboration to make sure that everyone is
pulling in the same direction. In other
words, if you go flat, make sure everyone
talks to each other.
2
Loosely defined organizations can enable innovation.
It’s always smart to have your best people work on your biggest problems. If you don’t set clear
organizational boundaries, then people will migrate easily and quickly to the problem areas,
develop ideas and feel free to quickly implement them. Sounds perfect. There is a drawback to
this design however; and the drawback is especially risky if you are surrounded with a bunch of
type “A” players. They will all migrate to the problem and then fight about who’s in charge. There
will be blood. If that’s the case, make sure that there is a designated apex predator in the group
to keep order.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
People behave to metrics and you can use your production metrics to enhance your profitability.
Metrics are best when they are representative, rational and achievable. But you can also use
them to create a culture of continual improvement.
Use the group average
to set the minimum
standards.
Don’t let your lowest producers set the
standard for your operations. Allow your best
performers to set the standard for everyone.
1 Leverage the success of
top performers.
They are outperforming the rest for good
reasons. Let them explain what they are
doing to your other team members. Give
them a forum to speak at a staff meeting or
recognition meeting and allow them to
share their expertise. Sharing best
practices, experiences, ideas and tactics
improves both engagement and
productivity. Both will move the needle.
2
Periodically reset the new minimums.
Capitalize on your teams’ improvements by upping the bar at scheduled intervals. Don’t be
overly random or scientific. Just pick the prior period average as the new floor and you will build
a ladder of successful productivity. If you use their actual performance averages, you will
simultaneously capture the benefits of the leaders and also avoid a protracted discussion about
fairness. Hey, it’s the average so that means most people are already making the goals. If
someone isn’t, give them a forum (as above) to learn how to improve. But insist on improvement.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
Try your best to avoid employee collisions and conflicts by being clear about who does what and
why. People like to know what they are responsible for and the overall leader is in the best
position to establish everyone’s lanes.
Match decision making
to responsibilities.
Are the roles you’ve put in place really
designed to succeed? As an employee, do
you have all of the tools you need to
accomplish your goals? A lot of time can be
spent on discussing fairness. A good way to
avoid those conflicts is to take the time to
match decision making authorities with the
responsibilities you have set for the team
members. If there is a mismatch, you will have
conflict and underperformance by design.
Avoid that by thinking through what you want
out of the role.
1 Seek to increase
collaboration while
clarifying boundaries.
You need to set boundaries so you don’t
allow pushing and shoving over turf.
Everyone likes to have a clear definition of
their territory but day to day life isn’t so
simple. Most business problems require a
team effort to resolve. And, you probably
can’t afford to give everyone on your team
their own complete staff. So, make sure that
collaboration is seen as a key aspect of
your culture. Everyone must be able to work
and play well with others in order to build a
successful enterprise. Start setting that
expectation from the beginning.
2
Provide a forum for disagreements.
Collaboration isn’t always easy because people are, well, people. They will disagree and you
absolutely want that. But you also want the matters to be resolved in a civil way so that there
isn’t any long term aftershock that creates a drag on performance. Incorporate the positive
aspects of disagreements into your environment but provide a means of resolving them through
stand sessions like meetings. Weekly staff sessions or dedicated forums are equally effective.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
Keeping track of things is an essential component of performance management. You do need to
know if you are on track and Dashboards can be a great tool to clarify direction, set standards
and align your team. The simpler the better. Good Dashboards are easy to find, read and
understand. Dashboards are like an abbreviated scorecard.
Keep them simple so
they can be easily
understood.
If it’s longer than 1 page, it isn’t a dashboard.
It’s a report. Your goal on a dashboard is to
quickly assimilate the status and then proceed
to adjust. Clarity is paramount. Allow your
staff to quickly spot the good, the maybe and
bad by color coding the dashboards with
Green, yellow and red ratings. Refresh them
often.
1 Focus on key variables
that drive real
performance.
Identify the things you are trying to
accomplish and avoid the temptation to go
number crazy. More isn’t necessarily better.
Quite often, long lists of numbers make
things more confusing and ineffective. So,
you will need a filter to determine what is
really important. Measure how you make
money, and ensure that your Dashboards
track the drivers of your progress. That’s
the easiest way to align interests and is a
powerful, no-surprises, communication tool.
2
Be consistent and disciplined about capturing, analyzing and
communicating the results.
Routine and repetition can ensure that the learnings are closely adhered to and acted upon.
Accuracy is paramount to create a level playing field and the sense of fairness. Dashboards can
be a great communication tool, provide a foundation for rewards and celebration and enhance
the credibility of your views on performance.
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GLEN WAKEMAN
01
0
If You Want Excellence, Celebrate Successes.
Resources are always limited and in demand. Most employees believe in two universal truths; 1.
They are underpaid and 2. They don’t have the resources they need to do the job. So
resource allocation decisions can get tricky and cause heartburn.
An alternative to never ending negotiations and conflict is to dig a bit deeper into the resource
question by focusing on the unit drivers of work: phone call, customer visit, widget, report, etc. By
concentrating on the driver you can use simple arithmetic to build your needed capacity and then
allocate resources accordingly.
Determine the root
causes of work
activities.
Don’t just concentrate on the output.
Determine the source of the work itself. What
generates the work? The idea here is to focus
on the why and not the what. Once you
determine the root cause, you can link it
directly to other activities that lead to
improvements.
1 Ensure that drivers form
the basis for
improvement projects.
Don’t waste time on money by working
harder, but on the wrong things. If you can
simplify your world into a handful of key
items that really drive your business results
and work activities, you can easily engage
your employees to make things better. It is
in their interest for thigs to go well so
alignment is easy. More, you can improve
your competitive advantage, productivity or
customer retention rates (to name a few) by
focusing your resources on the right things.
2
Make sure they are easy to explain.
This will take some real work because a natural tendency, when you are really busy (as all
entrepreneurs are), is to be superficial and move on to the next thing. Avoid that pitfall by ripping
away as many layers as possible until you find the simplest idea. The simpler the better. Simple
is easy to communicate and act on. And you will need buy-in from your team to set and achieve
your goals.
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