Here’s some food for thought on a Friday afternoon.

List the five most important things that you want your manager to do for you and the five most important ways that you want your manager to treat you. If you no longer have a manager think back to when you did.

Now think about how often you do them for your own people.

What’s your score?

I frequently disagree with the Welch’s opinions (especially regarding forced rankings), but the comments about holding onto stars are mostly right on. So while I generally agree with their stance that you shouldn’t go overboard holding onto a star who wants to leave, I have a problem with this statement,

…the care and feeding of top performers, which has more to do with a company’s success than virtually any other factor. After all, the team that fields the best players usually wins, doesn’t it?

That’s where I part company with many experts.

I agree that stars are great to have, but I’ve never seen one function alone, without the cooperation, support and backing of the team.

And I’ve seen too many team members leave because their manager’s focus was so completely on taking care of his few stars that he had nothing left over for the rest.

One of the finest managers I know has had a team packed with stars everywhere he’s worked. Partly because his reputation is well known and talent flocks to work for him, but mainly because he passionately believes that most people have the ability to become stars, some brighter than others, and he manages them accordingly.

True, he works harder at managing than many and has been kidded by his peers about the lengths to which he goes, but he tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.

I once asked him how he got to be that way and he said that he’d never done anything that he didn’t want from his own manager, so it wasn’t a big deal. I couldn’t resist asking if he was managed the way he did manage. His response was a smile and laugh and that just because he didn’t get it didn’t mean that he didn’t want it.

What do you think about stars? How do you manage them?

It used to be that companies built beautiful buildings to flaunt their wealth and satisfy executive egos—but the world has changed and true leaders are demanding far more from their edifices than rave revues or even awards. For the last ten years BusinessWeek and Architectural Record have focused on winners chosen not only for their beauty but also for the way they advance business strategies—not just brilliant architecture. Today, buildings inspire, they stimulate creativity and innovation, improve employee attraction and retention, increase customer loyalty and even raise revenues. (Be sure to click the pictures to read more about the companies and see additional views of the buildings.)

The IAC building has quickly become a local landmark, and its location near the Hudson River in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan—a hub of art, dining, and entertainment—helps to position the New Media company as a vital part of the 21st century cultural landscape. The buzz around the building helps to attract the kind of top-tier talent needed for Web-based businesses.

In many places call centers are windowless boxes where people struggle to keep their humanity while spending eight hours wearing a headset and starting at a computer screen. But not at Navy Federal Credit Union where

The philosophy was simple: Healthy employees equal healthy business. The building is certified Gold LEED, and natural elements abound: Oxygen-producing plants are everywhere, while a 400-foot-long glass exterior wall gives those manning the phones a view of the woods beyond. On breaks, workers can use the fitness trail around the campus or sit on one of the many outdoor benches. (Gym facilities and a health clinic are also located onsite.) Inside, an air-filtration system and individual employee control of heat and cooling within workstations makes for more comfortable work areas…“We have certainly seen our employee turnover

significantly reduced.”

An unusual vision brought together a for profit performing arts group and an educational enterprise creating benefits that rippled both directly and indirectly. Uniting a college drama department and a professional theater group under one roof is a double win: Students learn through close proximity to seasoned actors who, in turn, can benefit from the boundless enthusiasm of the young…In its first full year in its new location, Soulpepper… increased the number of its productions by 80%, and overall attendance rose 103%. Annual revenues doubled, to $6 million. In-house research…found that 97% of theatergoers approved of the new design, which has been reflected in improved patron contributions—up 38% in the first year…increased satisfaction from students and educators alike. Local businesses, art galleries, and restaurants have enjoyed increased revenues as well.

And then there’s Hearst—a name everybody knows, whose reputation over 119 years is very much a mixed bag. But the same can’t be said about their HQ…

The Hearst Tower’s environmental agenda and unique aesthetic have dominated conversation about the building, but its occupants like to talk about how it enhances their work experience…Increased productivity, an improved corporate image, and a healthy, attractive work environment have made Hearst a more desirable employer and a better company overall. Cosmopolitan publisher Donna Kalajian Lagani says the building has changed her perception of the company. “There is much more camaraderie companywide,” she observes. “I used to say I work at Cosmopolitan. Now I say I work at Hearst first.”

It’s not about how much money is spent it’s about the thought put into how you spend what you can afford.

I believe that it’s possible to show building leadership even when you’re a small company renting space if you focus on creating an environment that promotes healthy, happy workers and engages both them and your customers.

What do you think?

Stephanie Luetkehans said, “Having it all doesn’t necessarily mean having it all at once” and that’s good advice for all those clamoring to manage beyond their experience.

Notice I said experience, not time, not skill.

It’s the depth that’s forged in the fires of actually doing a job in a variety of economic times. This was enormously obvious during the recession (or slow-down or whatever it was called) after the dot-com bubble burst.

There were many talented managers with a decade of experience who were geniuses at finding special talent when it was in short supply, but who had no idea how to locate it when it was buried among thousands of resumes. Nor did they know how to support their people through round after round of layoffs, let alone how to lay someone off themselves. They had no idea how to sell to businesses that were tightening their belts, curtailing budgets and, in general, running scared. And they weren’t very good at doing more with less.

It wasn’t even their fault—during their entire career they’d never had to do any of those things. It happens when you enter the workforce at the start of a long upturn or down turn for the opposite is just as true.

I know people in their twenties who are superb managers when it comes to team-building, motivation and even communications, but I’m not sure how well they’ll do in the next slowdown.

As the song says, “what goes up must come down” and that’s true in every segment of the work world. From talent to product demand it’s either too much or too little—I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it being even.

And that’s the best reason for building your company or team with as wide a diversity of experience as possible; do it and you’ll be ready for whatever vagaries are thrown at you.

My buddy Bob over at ProjectManagement411 wrote a post to which I take partial exception. Essentially, he seemed to say that managing a group was boring in comparison to managing a project where one has no actual authority because when one has authority there’s no real challenge.

First, let me say that I’m not minimizing the difficulties faced by project managers; it is indeed the ultimate matrixed management position—responsibility sans authority, i.e., no leverage.

Managers’ traditional leverage—do it or you’re fired—doesn’t work very well on today’s workforce, whose reaction is more likely to be updating their resume.

Granted, there are many abusive managers out there who believe that their authority gives them the right to order people around, but it’s less and less effective. That’s especially true when creativity, innovation and productivity are requirements for getting the job done.

What it boils down to is that PMs can’t give orders by dint of their job description whereas managers can’t give orders by dint of their workforce—and neither one is going to change any time soon.

The advantage PMs have is that they don’t have to learn a new way of doing things.

What do you think?

Yesterday we talked about the difference between SOP (seat of the pants) and PBO (plan, budget and objectives), so I assume that you’re the manager who wants to provide a plan that will win your people’s buy-in

What PBO offers

• buy-in from every manager in the company,
• a statement of objectives incorporating the commitments of them all, a budget which reflects the agreed spending level for every person with any kind of budget responsibility—and the further down you push budgetary responsibility the faster your people grow—and
• the ability to execute the operating plan intelligently and without further direction.

Although I’ve used a full executive team in the steps, feel free to use your common sense to modify them to fit the structure and size of your company

Steps to PBO

1. The CEO details the top-level financial and managerial targets for the upcoming year. Limit the number of goals to three, definitely no more than five, because these are major goals requiring the efforts of the entire company to accomplish and most executives will have additional goals for their own departments

2. The CFO then creates an income statement based on the CEO’s targets. These include both new financial objectives as well as revenues projections based on the previous year, economic projections, health and growth of target markets, etc.

3. Distribute both documents to the senior staff.

4. Each VP analyzes the part for which they’re responsible and decides what’s required to accomplish it, e.g., additional headcount, new equipment/software, cooperation from other departments, etc. They may also add departmental objectives, e.g., a new computerized software release tracking system in engineering.

5. The senior staff then negotiates their inter-related needs. This is rarely a calm discussion. Expect feelings to run high as your execs fight for the resources that they believe necessary to accomplish the objectives. It’s also a good idea to watch for covert empire building or efforts to undercut political opponents or support allies.

6. The negotiations result in separate departmental budgets. However, if the projected revenues won’t support the budgets then the CEO needs to modify the original objectives.

7. Repeat steps one through six until the projected revenues cover the budgets required to accomplish the adjusted objectives. The result is a trial operating plan and budget, not a final version

8. The VPs take the trial plan and budget to their own staff and repeat the negotiating process with their direct reports who then do it with theirs, etc. This is not a sales function meant to overcome objections from the lower staff. Rather, it’s an effort to uncover any difficulties that would surface later, but could be addressed now, as well as a way to achieve true buy-in at all levels.

Note
Any change in any part requires a revision of the plan and a repeat of the above steps—multiple revisions are not unusual nor are the passionate discourse and heated discussions that happen before a completely acceptable operating plan is produced

Benefits

• The smartest CEOs make the overall Operating Plan and Objectives available to all knowledge workers via the company intranet (it may give your legal department ulcers) because employees at all levels are happier (read: turned-on, productive and innovative) when they know that their company knows what it’s doing, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there.
• It enables management to execute the plan without detailed day-to-day supervision because the trade-offs have already been negotiated and established.
• Lower levels of management are empowered and motivated by their inclusion in the process.
• Micro-managers and those who believe that workers are peons to be shoved around according to the manager’s whims will either change or go away—one of the most important side benefits of the PBO process.

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have. You may comment here or call me at 866.265.7267.

I’ve ranted on and off about cell phones since the first clunky ones became a status symbol and, in turn, been castigated by the folks using them. They claim that they’re totally necessary, enable business, nobody minds and that I’m reactionary and out of sync with today’s world.

They never convinced me. I found them annoying and the users rude beyond belief and it’s gotten progressively worse with the passing years.

The recent studies of cell phone usage—

A 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, The Associated Press and AOL found that 82 percent of all Americans and 86 percent of cell phone users were irritated by loud, annoying cell conversations in public…A 2006 poll by ABC News had similar findings: 87 percent of respondents say they’d witnessed annoying cell phone calls sometimes or often.

These studies are converging with David Dunning’s competency perception research

…people tend to have overly favorable and objectively indefensible views of their own abilities, talents, and moral character. For example, a full 94% of college professors state that they do “above average” work, although it is statistically impossible for virtually everybody to be above average.

Dunning’s work provides the explanation for the AP survey numbers—it’s everybody else who’s loud, irritating and rude.

Which reminds me of a story I heard years ago that’s probably still making the rounds on the Net, I know it’s still alive and well on the Interstate.

As I was driving to my office this morning on the I-5 near Laguna Woods, I looked over my shoulder to the left, and there was a woman in a brand new Mustang with her face up next to the rear view mirror putting on her eye makeup.

I looked away for a few seconds, and when I looked back, there she was halfway over in my lane, still working on her eyeliner. It scared me so badly that I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the Krispy Creme out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car with my knees against the steering wheel, my cell phone was knocked away from my ear and fell into the Starbucks coffee between my legs. Besides splashing hot coffee in a sensitive area, it ruined the phone and disconnected an important call.

And people wonder why guys get so upset with women drivers. Makeup! I ask you…

This is the wrapping season, with everybody doing their best to tidy up all the loose ends, both business and personal, before the year ends. For bosses it’s more complicated. Whether you do it yourself or have thousands of employees, you need to master the fine art of wrapping up this year while readying for the next one.

You better have a plan
Size be damned you need to know

• what you want to do, and
• how you’re going to do it.

This brings you to the crux of the matter—how do you plan for a sustainable business?

Choose your approach

• SOP (seat of the pants): Used frequently throughout business history, and extensively in the late Nineties. The CEO (top dog) discusses her desires over lunch with other (hopefully) senior staff members. Separately, each manager prepares a budget, including headcount for his department based on
  • what he thinks is needed to accomplish what the head honcho says she wants and
  • increasing his own leverage within the company (although these two are frequently reversed).

• PBO (operating plan w/budgets and objectives): Requires more thought and effort, but is the approach of choice for well-run companies. It requires the
  • creation of a viable operating plan to achieve the objectives; and a
  • detailed budget by which to implement it.

SOP, in all its glorious variations needs no further explanation (anyway, I don’t believe in it), so we’ll focus on PBO.

What’s in a PBO?

Three interlocked pieces—each critical to success.

1. A budget that states

• how much is available to spend during the upcoming year and
• who is responsible for spending it.

2. The specific objectives that the company needs to accomplish during the year,

• financial, e.g.,
  • increase revenues 10%
  • increase services to 25% of revenues; and the
• quantified managerial, e.g.,
  • raise productivity 8%
  • reduce turnover 15%

3. A description of how the company plans to achieve the objectives in order to move forward on accomplishing the company’s long-term twin goals of profitability and success.

The end result is a detailed business roadmap for the coming year.

Where’s the rocket science?
The three parts are interrelated and must be tightly linked, so changing one affects all. That’s it. Simple, right? Unfortunately, many executives treat them as separate entities wreaking havoc on their subordinates. They don’t get that it’s a domino effect and that when one changes they all must change.

Which are you?

• The boss who can’t be bothered to do the hard work and make the tough decisions and doesn’t worry about jerking his people around because ‘they’ll get over it’; or
• the boss who believes that with a good plan, known objectives and a viable budget all the managers—executives to the lowliest supervisor—will buy-in and execute intelligently throughout the year?

If you’re the latter, come back tomorrow and learn the steps involved in creating a PBO.