When trusted employees steal

A coaching client just informed us of their discovery that a trusted employee has been stealing from the company by manipulating and creating false transactions in the company’s business software. Luckily, another employee saw something questionable and informed the owners. After hours of examining and comparing transaction logs, it was clear who the culprit was, how it was done, and for how long it’s been happening. Damn…isn’t running a business difficult enough without having your own employees stealing from you – especially one from your trusted inner circle?

The owners were shocked and devastated to discover just how extensive their trust was violated by this key employee. To learn that thousands of dollars had been siphoned out of much needed cash flow is one thing, but to learn that someone you trusted intentionally stole from the company right under your nose is where the real and lasting damage is done.

Leading is about believing in people

Being the leader of a business is perhaps one of the most complex, rewarding, and often brutally frustrating professions. Leaders are constantly held accountable, subjected to relentless demands, and must always be at the top of their game. A true leader works tirelessly to drive the Four Business Outcomes: productivity, profitability, staff retention, and customer loyalty. But when you peel away all of the trappings of leadership, what it really comes down to is believing in people – and that’s where things start to get interesting.

A leader’s job is to achieve results through the work of others. They keep people and teams on task. They maintain order, direction, and momentum. But would you want to work for a leader who is solely driven by the numbers, in an organization where people are simply the means to an end? In turn, would you want to be that kind of leader? You will get your results, but at what cost to those you lead; and at what cost to the work environment, or company culture?

Six strategies to find more time

Our lives are consumed with deadlines, “to do” lists, emails, deleting spam, meetings, interruptions, urgent problems, family … and that spectacular bucket list of things you want to check off before you check out. We all know that time is precious. It simply ticks by and cannot be recaptured. Nothing drives this reality home better than remembering that our time in this world is finite – not infinite.

It’s virtually impossible for leaders to be immune from time management challenges. Stuff happens and you need to lead in the moment. The world around you relentlessly tries to invade and capture bits and pieces of your time. Guess what? You do the same to those around you. It’s what leaders do. All it takes is for someone to say, “I need to speak to you for a minute,” and before you know it, half a day has passed and you are thrown completely off schedule.

Six strategies to create a culture of accountability

This Monday Morning Wake-Up is for everyone – not just leaders. In its simplest form, accountability means taking ownership. You take ownership as a leader to grow your company, create opportunities for others, and ensure fiscal health. You take ownership of projects, situations, and outcomes. You take ownership in your behavior and the behavior of others. You take ownership when the wrong outcomes occur – even if not directly involved – because it happened on your watch. Accountability is about getting the right stuff done when it needs to get done. No blame. No excuses.

Take a moment to imagine what your company’s performance would be like if it was built on a culture of accountability. What would productivity look like? What would profitability look like? What would staff retention look like? Most important, what would client loyalty look like? Without a doubt, your company would be leaner, faster, and fiercely competitive. That’s the good news. The bad news is that too many companies give a lot of lip service to accountability but fall short of the level of commitment and execution needed to create a culture of ownership in their companies. As a result, creating distance between status quo and extraordinary performance is painfully and incrementally slow.

Six reasons projects and change initiatives fail

There is nothing more common in business than launching a new project or change initiative. That’s how companies strive to remain competitive and adapt to changing market conditions. It’s how companies tweak current systems and build new ones to improve productivity and maximize resources. New projects and change initiatives must occur for a company to remain vital and relevant. However, the other most common occurrence in business is the number of new projects and change initiatives that fail.

As a coach and consultant, my job is to help companies achieve the right outcomes in what I call “The Four Business Outcomes”: Productivity, Profitability, Employee Retention, and Customer Loyalty. To achieve different and more desirable outcomes, new projects and change initiatives must occur. If the company is in dire straights, its ability to execute change with a high sense of urgency is put to the test. Unfortunately, it is the company’s inability to execute change combined with a low sense of urgency that causes it to be in dire straights in the first place.

Six simple questions to test your company’s health

Companies are very much like people. They are born from a union of ideas; they experience all of the awkward phases of learning to walk and develop basic skills; and hopefully, they grow up with much success. Like people, companies can catch colds – they face obstacles in health when it comes to performance issues, cash-flow challenges, and other problems that surface unexpectedly. Companies need to work out to stay strong and lean rather than heavy and lethargic. Companies can get sick and die.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to protect and ensure the health and vitality of your company. That being said, you are also the one who is ultimately responsible for making your company sick through bad decision-making, procrastination, allowing the company’s culture to deteriorate, poor cash management, and a host of other faux pas that leaders notoriously self-inflict.

Companies of every shape and size are susceptible to infection. The question always comes down to whether or not the company is healthy and strong enough to fight the infection off.

Here are six simple, yet intensely profound, no-compromise questions to test your company’s current health:

1. Are you the system? Systems exist to create predictable outcomes. Building, perfecting, and locking systems are tedious yet essential parts of ensuring the right outcomes. When the leader needs to micromanage daily work, the leader becomes the system. If you’ve ever uttered the words, “Can’t they just do their jobs?” you have become the system – and it’s not working for you, your team, your company, and your customers. If you are the system, your company is not healthy.
2. What is your company fighting for? People fight for causes they believe in. Fighting for a cause unleashes the most precious energy source a company can possess – passion. Passion drives productivity, innovation, efficiency, and the ability to achieve outcomes that others perceive as unattainable. If the vision, purpose, values, and guiding principles of your company do not ignite the passion of your team, your company is not healthy.
3. Are you managing cash flow? Cash is your company’s fuel. It’s hard to fight and win in today’s economic climate if your company’s fuel gauge warning light is flashing. Too many leaders don’t pay enough attention to cash management until their fuel tank is critically low. Repeatedly filling your fuel tank with borrowed money is dangerous because debt saps future cash. Maintaining a cash reserve of three to four months operating expenses is not something you dream about – it’s something to discipline yourself and your company to do. If you’re not relentlessly managing cash flow, your company is not healthy.
4. Is information really flowing? The human body possesses a sophisticated information flow system. The simple act of walking is a coordinated effort of information flow and execution. In most companies, information flow is best described as constipated. Information may flow to some areas, but only trickle or bypass others. Think of information flow as “what, why, how, the score.” The right outcomes occur when expectations are clarified, processes are defined, deadlines established and agreed to, and progress is monitored via feedback or the equivalent of a scoreboard. Invest the time and energy to ensure information is flowing to every nook and cranny of your company. If it isn’t, your company is not healthy.
5. Is your GPS turned on? I use GPS navigation in my car, on my iPhone, iPad, and the Garmin on my road bike. These days, it’s almost impossible to not know where you are and if you’re on course to your intended destination. Do you know your company’s present location on its three-, five-, or ten-year plan? What are the ten initiatives you plan to complete this year? Which benchmarks and critical numbers are meeting expectations and which ones need focused attention? If you don’t know precisely where your company is, your company is not healthy.
6. Can it endure? As a human being, your time on earth is finite – so is your time as leader of your company. In contrast, a company can and should endure long after you’re gone. The ability to endure is the ultimate indicator of the health of a company. Are you building a company capable of enduring or a fortress to support your ego? Are you building a company that is growing in value – and does your Balance Sheet prove that it is? Are you grooming your replacement? Are you letting go of the reigns and allowing your leadership team to be accountable? The most important thing for a leader to remember is that he or she is not the company. The company is a living entity with its own vital signs and purpose for existing. If your company cannot endure beyond your leadership, it is not healthy.

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Set employees up to win – not fail

Employees get set up to fail more often than you think. It’s never done intentionally – it just happens. Tasks are poorly defined. Desired results are sketchy. The chain of command looks like a pile of broken links. Training is inconsistent and inadequate. There are leaders that actually expect employees to know what they’re thinking … and to execute their nonverbal commands perfectly.

Some employees try their best to deliver what they perceive they were charged to do and get chewed out when their performance doesn’t match unspoken expectations. Others give it half an effort knowing they can’t win. The end result is always a demoralized team and de-powered culture that is capable of so much more. Once a pattern of getting set up to fail settles into a company’s culture, getting things done takes more time, money, and resources. The company springs leaks that it cannot plug up fast enough.

When Strategies does onsite No-Compromise Leadership sessions, we interview employees. That’s when we hear the other side of the story as employees vent about their frustrations with the company and its leadership. Don’t get me wrong – these aren’t “rip the leader to shreds” sessions. Rather, they are open and honest opportunities for employees to express their concerns with the practices, thinking, and behavior of the company and its leader(s). It’s no different than leaders expressing their concerns about employees. Everyone wants the company to be the best it can be – to be set up to win.

How to avoid inconsistency in the workplace

You design systems to ensure predictable outcomes. Most systems are rather straightforward, requiring employees to be aware, engaged, and paying attention. On the other hand, complex systems require intense concentration on procedures, measurements, timing, and other factors that cannot be compromised. World-class companies are defined by their consistent ability to execute their systems flawlessly. Discipline is embedded into their cultures.

When systems of any kind are compromised, inconsistent results occur. Material waste, labor cost, missed deadlines, upset customers, and stress all impedes forward progress. When inconsistencies get out of control, media coverage can do major damage to a company’s product, service, and reputation. Anyone taking a Carnival cruise anytime soon? I think not.

Here are some no-compromise strategies to purge your company of costly inconsistencies:

• Leadership allows it: I figured I would nail this one first because leaders, no matter how much they despise inconsistency, watch it occur everyday in their companies and do little or nothing to address it. Systems and standards of performance must be built on a foundation of shared accountability. Accountability is doing what needs to be done and taking ownership in the success of the company. Fact: too many leaders are uncomfortable leading with a high level of accountability. I’m not suggesting a company and its culture can’t be fun – I’m simply stating that accountability is tough work. Tony Hsieh’s book “Delivering Happiness” is his story of building Zappos’ fun culture. However, Amazon didn’t acquire Zappos in 2009 for $1.2 billion because it was all fun and no profit. Fun cultures can most certainly be accountable cultures. Leaders allow “average is good enough” in their companies.
• It’s not for everyone: Just as some leaders find leading a high accountability culture out of their comfort zone, many employees can’t deal with it either. Succeeding in a high accountability culture requires a solid work ethic and determination to excel. Sadly, there are employees that just want a job and a paycheck, and view showing up and going through the motions as good enough. Sorry but if you keep that employee on payroll, you continue to buy mediocre behavior and performance every time you hand them their paycheck. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to spend money on that kind of behavior.
• Factor of Ten: The “Factor of Ten” is my way of shining a laser beam on the importance of training and coaching your team members to master your systems and processes. You can’t hand them a manual or show them a video module and expect the level of mastery necessary to eliminate costly inconsistencies. Training and coaching is non-negotiable. Inspecting and correcting is non-negotiable. Taking personal interest in guiding employees to achieve their full potential is non-negotiable. Achieving world-class performance and status begins with world-class training and coaching. No compromise.
• Ditch the Micro: Micro-management is what inexperienced, control freak leaders do. It’s exhausting, stressful, and stifling for leaders that do it and the poor souls that try to function under it. Micro-management is a culture based on distrust and finding fault. It wears people down rather than building them up. It de-powers rather than empowers people to take responsibility and initiative. Got all that? Good. Stop micro-managing. Let go of some of the controls and see what happens. Give your people an opportunity to shine. Coach them when they make a poor decision. Celebrate them when they achieve a win.
• Your “World Class”: Define what world class means to you and your company. Engage your employees in the process so they have ownership in the definition and the outcome. Attach that to your company vision. Make it a focal point for the next six months. Talk about it. Meet about it. Have constructive dialogue about it. Begin living it.

In the end, it’s about being the best based on your own terms. No compromise.

Dealing with change resisters

Every moment of every day, change is all around us. Seasons change. Weather changes. Our bodies change. Our lives change. Likewise, business changes. Every day, new businesses are born – some grow, prosper, and endure for a long, healthy life, while others stumble and die. The one constant we can be sure of is that change is relentless. Some embrace it with open arms. Some wait to see what the new reality looks like and then jump onboard. And then there are the change resisters that hold onto the status quo with a white-knuckled grip.

Contrary to popular belief, change resisters don’t exist to drive you crazy – even though they can and do. Change resisters simply deal with change differently than most. They lock into patterns of thinking, behavior, systems, and cultures that become their “normal.” They get good at functioning in their “normal.” They know everything about their “normal.” And then change comes along, often with a wrecking ball, and starts knocking down their “normal” to replace it with something new and foreign. Their natural response is to protect their “normal” by resisting change.

Late is late

You’re reading my Monday Morning Wake Up. About 10,000 readers trust that it will be in their in-box every Monday morning. If it arrived on Monday afternoon, or sometime on Tuesday, it would be irrelevant – and so would I. Being on time is about honor and respect for those you work with, those you serve, and, more importantly, yourself. Lateness is not world class. Lateness is not professional. Lateness is living below the line.

I don’t like being late. I prefer to be early for work, appointments, and commitments. That’s how I’m wired. People that are habitually late are clearly wired differently. Some even take pride in their lateness, which is really nothing more than a feeble attempt get others to deal with their behavior and not hold them accountable.