Monday Slacker Manager wrote that people quit managers, not companies; I took that further in my Tuesday post saying that
Adequate managers manage employees.
Good managers manage people.
Great managers manage persons.
Marvin commented that this also applied to families, saying, “It was a great reminder that people don’t leave families, they leave the leaders of that family. … Adequate husbands/fathers have a wife and kids, Good husbands/fathers provide for their wife and kids, Great husbands/fathers learn the individual needs of their wife and kids and serve them accordingly.”
I know from Marvin’s site that he is coming from a Christian perspective and I respect that.
However, I’m not willing to assume that the male is the ‘leader’ in a marriage—nor do I think the woman is (no offense to any same-sex couples reading this) and I certainly hope that the kids aren’t.
I think marriages should be partnerships, with both contributing to the vision and each leading within his/her strengths and supporting the other as appropriate—and I don’t mean this in the traditional sense.
Next, I’m not completely comfortable with the paraphrasing.
Having a wife and kids is possible for any male with $20 bucks for the license (it’s probably gone up) and active sperm and those two things certainly don’t make them adequate in my mind.
The ‘good’ ones provide what? Food, shelter and safety or more intangible things, such as love, respect and acceptance.
There’s nothing wrong with the definition of ‘great’ as long as it includes unconditional love, unconditional respect and unconditional acceptance for life choices—barring those that are illegal—that may not agree with others in the family.
I also think that ‘great’ is more than serving individual needs in kids; sometimes their needs shouldn’t be served or they will come to expect that. Serving is also about standing back and letting the kid make mistakes starting at a very young age. No parent serves their child by smoothing every kink, filling every pothole and easing every difficulty on the road to adulthood.
Serving is about being sure that kids are exposed to and learn to deal with the real world, one that doesn’t always live up to expectations or work the way one wants.
My own opinion is that this can’t happen if the child is raised in a homogenous environment spending their time with like-minded people. I also think it’s unfair to the kid, because eventually they’ll have to function in the real world, which is messy, diverse and often uncooperative.
This is as true whether it’s the Latino kids living in the Mission District of San Francisco being able to do everything in Spanish except school or the home-schooled kid whose entire world and contact revolves around their family and church.
Homogeny is crippling when it comes to producing adults who can move in a diverse, multicultural, multi-thought, multi-everything global economy.
If you ask most people who they work for they’ll name a company, but if you ask them why they love or hate it, stay or leave they’ll usually mention a manager, the people or the culture, which is a projection of the manager and the people.
People quitting is expensive and bad for team morale, but, as Phil pointed out, they can quit and not leave, which, from a management perspective, is the worst thing that can happen.
Think about it, who do you manage? And How?
Adequate managers manage employees.
Good managers manage people.
Great managers manage persons.
Yes, persons. Individuals, because you can’t manage (or lead) everyone the same way.
The same words often mean something different to different people, so you need to say what’s necessary in whatever words will ensure that each individual hears and understands your message.
I’m not saying that it’s easy, but you aren’t paid for easy—you’re paid for results.
And knowing how to manage persons is the best way to ensure that your people won’t quit.
Possibly the most difficult question for any is business:
“Is it time to pull the plug?”
Business Bankruptcies up over 100% since 2006
In this difficult economic environment, many businesses are answering that question simply, “yes.” As the chart below shows, business bankruptcy filings grew dramatically in 2008, up over 100% from 19,695 in 2006 to 43,546 in 2008.
This chart is deceptive, because the average annual number of business bankruptcy filings for the 28 years 1980-2008 is 52,667 and the number of filings in 2005 was 39,201. So the 43,000 filings in 2008 are 20% below the long-term average and just a little above the number in 2005. But, regardless of the long-term average, the short-term trend is up over 200%.
Time to Pull the Plug on My Business?
Setting aside statistics, the question at hand is real, personal, and immediate for many small business owners. As a professional business consultant, I work with several clients struggling with this question.
One of my clients generates approximately $3,000,000 in revenue and supports 25 employees. For the past two years, this company’s revenue has remained flat, with annual losses of $250,000 or so. This year revenues have declined and the owner has kept the monthly losses to $20,000 by reducing expenses. So far, so good, right?
Will the situation improve in the near future? Is a turn-around in sight with just a little more patience and persistence? When does persistence become stubbornness? When is it time to pull the plug? How do you know? Forgive this barrage of questions—this is an extremely difficult, emotional question for a business owner.
What Are Your Choices?
As a business unit manager, you have the opportunity and responsibility to make major changes in your business. 2% solutions don’t count.
What few significant changes can you make to improve the problems facing your business?
Eliminating People Means Eliminating Work. You simply cannot eliminate people and leave the workload unchanged. How can you reorganize your business to reduce the work? Can you automate or outsource back-office services or sales? Can you move more functions online? Can you move your customers to self-service online? Can you use online order / payment to simplify the sales and collection processes?
Don’t Eliminate Products. Eliminate Production Costs. Can you shift inventory and fulfillment services to suppliers or third parties?
Don’t Eliminate Value. Eliminate Overhead. Do you need all the office space, telephones, equipment, and software? Eliminate, reduce, or find it for free.
Grow Revenues. Be careful here, as increasing revenue is extremely difficult, especially in this recession economy. It’s easy to forecast big growth, only to be surprised three months later when the growth has not appeared on schedule. First, find a few customers for your services, and then forecast the growth based on their orders.
You Already Know the Answer
Three business aphorisms provide some insights into this question:
The universe rewards action.
Ready, fire, aim.
Follow the money.
Taken as a set, they offer a road map to making this difficult decision.
If your business is struggling, then do something! The business (universe) will respond to your actions.
If the business situation is getting worse, you have limited time and budget to make meaningful changes. This is not the time to be shy. Take some dramatic action. That’s the “ready, fire” advice. Observe the result. Based on the result, quickly adjust your actions to improve the outcome (aim).
Finally, follow the money to your desired outcome. You know your budget for time and money. When either one runs out, you lose your freedom of action. Take action now, while you still have freedom to choose.
The biggest obstacles to meaningful business change are usually not intellectual understanding of the problem, or a lack of options, but emotion and fear.
For instance, most business owners truly care for their employees so layoffs are difficult. “What will my employees do without this job? How will they survive?” If you are considering major changes in business direction, fear raises similar questions about you; “How will my company survive if I make this change? What will I do with my life if my company fails, or if I have to shut it down?”
Together, emotional attachment and fear of the future create a paralysis, even in the face of clear impending disaster. When you wake up at 2 AM, what is on your mind? If you can get past the emotion and fear, I believe you already know the answer. “Don’t go wobbly,” as Margaret Thatcher famously advised George Bush senior when he was preparing for the first Iraq war. “I just don’t know,” is a cop-out.
What is Your Biggest Fear?
If your company is losing money each month, you must make changes. In this economy, your business will not get better by itself. What is the single change you fear the most?
Turn off the computer, put down the cell phone. Be still for a few moments, sitting with your fears and emotions. What is your biggest fear? Go there. Do it.
Wishing you the courage to make the difficult decisions,
A few days ago a CEO mentioned that he tries to run his company based on the Golden Rule. He was surprised when I responded that that wasn’t always a good idea and wanted to know why I thought that.
Since Carl Sagan had helped shape my attitude in his The Rules of the Game, I sent him the PDF to read.
The rules were garnered through living and they’re the best enticement I can think of to get you to read the essay. (All eight pages, click the link!).
TABLE OF PROPOSED RULES TO LIVE BY
The Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The Silver Rule Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
The Brazen Rule Do unto others as they do unto you.
The Iron Rule Do unto others as you like, before they do it unto you.
The Tit-for-Tat Rule Cooperate with others first, then do unto them as they do unto you.
My CEO was delighted, because the rule evaluation results—Tit-for-Tat was the big winner—made so much sense.
I’m helping him put together a presentation explaining it—along with copies of the essay for everyone in the company—so the concepts can be woven into the company culture.
He thinks that his people, most are technically trained, will jump on it, since, in addition to it being from Sagan, prisoner’s dilemma (game theory) was applied by another scientist in evaluating the rules.
He says that that will prevent his techies from, “holding their collective noses and chanting fuzzy, fuzzy.”
Do you watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition? I usually have it on Sunday evenings while I’m writing and last night was no exception. For those of you who don’t watch, all the makeovers this season were for ‘heroes’; people who ignored their own situation to give back.
Last night was a makeover for Bernard McFarland, a 37 year old single dad who has become a mentor to all the kids in his neighborhood. He’s a firm believer that ‘knowledge is power’ and that learning and books are the answer to everything. (You can watch it online.)
But what I really like is the slogan he teaches the kids and, obviously, believes himself.
I like it enough to add it to my Rules To Live By (it’s number 24).
A few weeks ago Jim posted the first two parts of a four-part series and then got distracted with those minor details of life—such as graduation and job hunting—that are grist to his comic mill. Since the series was interrupted, Jim decided that he would include all four panels today.
Communications are all important to the smooth running of anything involving people.
Obviously this includes business, since companies are no more than an affiliated group of people committed (in varying degrees) to progressing towards the same goal.
“Simple clear purpose and principles give rise to complex intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple stupid behavior.” –Dee Hock (Visa founder)
There is no question that this is true as proved by the next two quotes from opposite ends of the clarity spectrum. Follow the first and you will be reviled by your colleagues, but implementing the second will make you both loved and influential.
The first is a superb example of what not to do from an organization that has demonstrated throughout its existence a brilliant ability to obfuscate in all its communications.
“Passive activity income does not include the following: Income for an activity that is not a passive activity.” –IRS form, Passive Activity Loss Limitation
The second is a bit of brilliance from a guy (pun intended) I hold in the highest regard. It’s just too bad more people don’t follow this particular advice.
“I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It’s a skill that you learn. The key is the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides given in 20 minutes using no font smaller than 30 points. If people just adhered to this rule, they would double or triple the quality of their presentations. Less is more when it comes to pitching. You cannot bludgeon people into believing.” –Guy Kawasaki
But as important as communications are, never lose sight of the following:
“Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything. Plans don’t accomplish anything. Theories of management don’t much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.” –Colin Powell
Next up is an article from Clark Bosley who asks the companies he visits, “Do you have a copy of your company’s code of conduct?” Read what the answer portends.
Finally, a bit of cultural levity. We all know that Southwest Air Lines has a great culture, which now includes rapping flight attendants. But they aren’t the only ones, if you want more click here.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
The ‘good’ ones provide what? Food, shelter and safety or more intangible things, such as love, respect and acceptance.
If you ask most people who they work for they’ll name a company, but if you ask them why they love or hate it, stay or leave they’ll usually mention a manager, the people or the culture, which is a projection of the manager and the people.
Since 
The first is a new article from Malcom Gladwell, author of 
