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Editor: Dr. Wolf J. Rinke ----- Feel free to forward this eNewsletter to others. ------- IN THIS ISSUE =================================================== =================================================== ACTION STEPS: =================================================== The first, as I explained in my book Winning Management: 6 Fail-Safe Strategies for Building High-Performance Organizations, is because managers have not built a solid foundation. Here is what I mean. Let's say you want to build your dream house so you buy the best of everything--the best lumber, the best bricks, the best roof, and so on. Then you proceed to build your dream house on quicksand. Will it last? Does it matter that you bought the best of everything? Of course not! However, that is how most managers go about building their organization. They buy the best, or at least the latest, of everything and begin the implementation without a solid foundation, without getting their own heads screwed on right, without changing their basic belief system (especially as it relates to people), without clearly defining their philosophy and core values, and without changing the organizational culture. As a result, just like the dream house built on quicksand, the management model will work for a while, but then it will crumble or even implode. The result is that instead of building a high-performance organization, employees feel used or even abused; they become cynical and strengthen their basic defense mechanisms so that they can remain sane. The outcome is lowered performance and productivity and resistant employees who have mastered the art of playing the "let's pretend" game, who have hardened their protective shells just a little bit more so that they can survive the next management "solution" that will be coming along very soon. The second reason that management models fail is that U.S. managers
are too impatient. (That's an understatement.) They want results yesterday.
It reminds me of the person who has been overeating for thirty years
and one day steps on the scale only to realize: "I'm fat."
He immediately begins his search for a magical diet and, having found
it, goes on it right away. And if that diet does not work in thirty
days, the diet is "no good" and the search for another "magic
bullet" starts all over again! Effective long-term changes in weight
can only come about as a result of a change in behavior! And changing
one's behavior, as any mental health professional will tell you, takes
time…lots of time. Changing the behavior of many people, which
is what management models attempt to do, takes even longer--at least
three to seven years. (Read that again!) Of course, during that time
several "new" management (dare I say the F word?) "fads"
come along, which cause managers to jump ship. After all, it's tough
to stick with an "outdated" management model when all your
colleagues and competitors are doing the "in thing." Of course the next question is: what should I stick with? The answer,
at least as it relates to building your business, is get back to basics,
as demonstrated in a powerful multiyear study of more than 200 management
practices applied in 160 companies in over ten years. The study shoots
a whole bunch of sacred cows, and identifies what practices do produce
superior results. Nohria and colleagues found that companies that outperformed
their industry peers--they called them "winners"--rigorously
practiced four basic, somewhat non-sexy, management practices: In addition, the researches found that the winning companies supplemented their relentless practice of the four basic strategies with any two of the following secondary strategies. And surprisingly, it did not matter which two they excelled in, nor did it give companies a competitive advantage if they excelled in more than two. So pick two of the following and get on with it. Secondary Practice #1: Talent Secondary Practice #2: Innovation Secondary Practice #3: Leadership Secondary Practice #4: Mergers and partnerships The power of this research is that "a company who consistently follows this [4+2] formula has a better than 90% chance of sustaining superior business performance." (Nohria, p.44.) So what are you waiting for, start practicing the smart steps that follow and increase your chance of achieving dramatic improvements in performance and productivity. SMART STEPS --Stick with any new leadership or management model for at least three years. --Starting this month build a business strategy that is based on your customers needs and is focused on your core business. --Aggressively communicate your strategy to your employees, customers and all other stakeholders. --Push all decision making down to the lowest level so that team members can respond to customer needs. --Set a goal to eliminate all forms of waste to achieve productivity improvements of 5% per quarter until you are the most productive in your industry. --Talk less, execute more. --If in doubt, do the right thing. --Establish a compensation system that ties external and internal rewards to performance. --During the next three months conduct an employee satisfaction survey and then act on the findings. SOURCE: Based in part on Chapter 2 of my new book Don't Oil the Squeaky Wheel and 19 Other Contrarian Ways to Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness, recently released by McGraw-Hill. Take advantage of my special offer that follows. =================================================== Advance praise: "Tells you what you need to know to win in the
game of leadership in these turbulent times." POWERFUL CD: How to Motivate Employees to Achieve Peak Performance. Publisher Price: $19.95. This LIVE audio by yours truly (~60 mins.) will teach you how to build a positive organizational culture that will achieve quantum leaps in performance, productivity and profitability. Both book and CD--$24.90 + s/h. SAVE $10.00! Offer expires 10/1/2004 To order log onto http://www.WolfRinke.com/SpecialJuly04.html ============================================== Winning Management: Building a Peak Performance Workplace =================================================== We trained hard… but it seemed that every time we were beginning
to form up into teams we would be reorganized…. I was to learn
later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing;
and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress
while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. (Please
note the date.) =================================================== =================================================== If this was forwarded to you and you would like to receive your own
FREE subscription click above.
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