SOCIAL CAUSE MARKETING The Noble and Necessary Job of a Manager: Keys to Great Performance Management

EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE SEPT.2009

SOCIAL CAUSE MARKETING

The Noble and Necessary Job of a Manager: Keys to Great Performance Management

-- Dan Coughlin

When it comes to dramatically improving the US economy, the most important person in making it happen is a business manager. Time is one fixed resource that all managers have. Obviously the tighter money becomes, the harder it is for a manager to obtain all of the other resources he or she wants to create value for other people.

When it comes to dramatically improving the US economy, the most important person is not the president of the US, a US senator, a congressman or congresswoman, or an economist. Each of those individuals is important, but none of them is the most important in terms of reviving our economy and generating long-term, sustainable success. The most important person in making that happen is a business manager. Business managers come with different titles in different industries and at different pay scales. Their labels include CEO, Vice-President, Director, Chief Global Marketing Officer, Chief Technology Officer, front-line manager, department head, purchasing manager, controller, and on and on. All of these people are managers. And all of them play THE critical role in improving our economy. It doesn't matter whether a person is a manager of one McDonald's restaurant or all of the McDonald's restaurants in the US; a front-desk manager of a Courtyard by Marriott or the president of Marriott International; or the manager of a local retail store or the head of Macy's.

The job is still the same, and it is both a necessary and noble job to do. It is necessary because without it we can't get our economy going again. It is noble, which means possessing outstanding qualities, because managers are the ones who have to be capable of converting a collection of individual inputs into organizational value for customers that they will pay for.

Actually the most important persons are the tens of thousands of business managers across the US. Almost all of these managers will never become known outside of their organizations and their families. The vast, vast majority of them will never become multimillionaires, be seen on CNN, or write a book. However, I guarantee you they are the most important individuals in moving our economy forward in the future.

Long ago I decided that my life's work is to try to assist managers toward delivering great performances. A great management performance is one that converts available resources into extraordinary value that generates significant and sustainable improvement in results for customers, for the organization, and for the communities in which they operate.

A manager's resources include his or her employees, facilities, equipment, time, and money. Time is the one fixed resource that all managers have. Obviously the tighter money becomes, the harder it is for a manager to obtain all of the other resources he or she wants to create value for other people. Consequently, the worse the economy gets, the more important the role of the manager becomes. It is this skill of converting resources, even limited resources, into greater value that ultimately moves an economy forward.

Keys to Great Management Performance

Over the past eleven years, I've landed on a variety of critical actions for managers to do to deliver a truly great management performance. What follows is not a complete list, but it is a good place to start.

Strengthen Your Foundation First

Get yourself right first. Whatever that means for you, I encourage you to do it. The vast majority of management blunders I've witnessed can be traced back to the manager being overly tired, stressed out, out of shape, feeling guilty, or on the verge of some other personal breakdown. Examine your own physical, mental, social, emotional, moral, and financial situations. If you're a spiritual person, then throw that in as well. Is your foundation where you want it to be? If not, what few practical things could you start with to improve your foundation? By making some progress and doing it over and over again, you will get yourself far closer to where you want your foundation to be. I've always been impressed by the ripple effect a manager has on other people when he or she strengthens the foundation of his or her life.

Dan Coughlin is a student and teacher of practical processes to improve business momentum. He has invested more than 3,000 hours on-site observing and advising executives and managers in more than 30 industries. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of the new book, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business (AMACOM 2009). If you want to read Chapter One from this new book, click here: http://www.thecoughlincompany. com/The–Management–500–ch1.pdf. Dan's clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald's, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation. He can be visited at: www.thecoughlincompany. com.

Know Why You Do What You Do

Remember that passion comes from purpose, not the other way around. Why do you do what you do? What is your purpose beyond the paycheck? Since you are unlikely to be paid a king's ransom or to become famous as a manager, you need a purpose for your work that can sustain you through good and bad economic times.

Once you're clear about your purpose for doing the work you do, then work with others to clarify the purpose of the organization or work group that you manage. Recently, I interviewed Roy Spence and Haley Rushing, authors of It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For, which is the best book I've ever read on the importance of establishing an organizational purpose that resonates with both employees and customers. Click here to read my interview with Roy and Haley called "A Conversation on Purpose: Insights on What Drives Extraordinary Organizational Performance": http://www.thecoughlin-company.com/conversation_on_ purpose.html

Take the Hardest Step in Business

The hardest step in business is to step back and think. Really think through the desired outcomes, the various paths to make those outcomes a reality, the planned activities necessary to stick to the path you've chosen, and so on. It is actually much easier to press forward with action than to step back and think through the ramifications.

Here is a real-life story of two senior-level executives in a major corporation that I'll call Hare and Tortoise. Hare was a driver-driver. If he had an idea, he would push it into action throughout the organization immediately. Tortoise's approach was to pose a desired outcome in the form of a question, gather input, consider the alternatives, and then guide the group to deliver on a clear action plan using a collaborative approach.

Hare was a rising star. He became famous throughout the organization for getting stuff done. Then one day employees and customers started leaving the organization. Every time Hare had an idea he would send his employees into motion immediately to implement it. It didn't matter that many of the ideas had no connection to earlier ideas. Hare kept pushing new actions through the organization faster and faster and faster. More employees and customers left. Within a few years, the numbers were so dramatically down that Hare was let go.

Tortoise took over a few extremely poor-performing business units. Instead of rushing to make decisions, he scheduled time to think. He brought together a group of about 15 people to discuss where the business was at, where they wanted it to go, and how they could get there. Using a collaborative approach, the group steadily made improvements. After five consecutive years of great business performances, Tortoise was promoted to another underperforming business unit. Same pattern: thinking time, group time with a collaborative approach, five years of great results, and another promotion.

If you want to be a truly great manager, take the hardest step in business. Step back and think.

Manage Talent, Don't Abandon It

Business talent is the ability to help create value for customers that they will want to pay for and that will help the organization achieve its desired goals. In the midst of all this letting go of employees that has happened over the past year, be sure you're not saving short-term results only to ruin the long-term success of your business. Ultimately, you have to have talent in order to create more value for your customers. You're not going to make it all by yourself. Be sure to keep as much of the real business talent in your organization as you possibly can. That is the ultimate resource you will be converting into value for customers in the future.

Steward, Don't Steal

Over the past 11 years I've written at least one 1,500 word article each month as well as three 70,000-word books. So I'm up to something like 400,000 words on management effectiveness. But if I had to narrow my advice on how to be a great manager down to three words, they would be: steward, don't steal.

In the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, stewardship means "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care." In a nutshell, that's the job of a business manager. Think of your main job as stewarding resources in ways that will enrich them and create more value for customers. The greatest managers I've ever witnessed embraced this concept of stewardship, applied it skillfully, and always worked to improve at it. A magnificent new book on the idea of being a great steward is Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John Bogle. I encourage you to buy this book and really study it carefully. It is a beautiful explanation of old-time values delivered by a person who has truly lived them.

Of course, you want to, and you should, be paid a reasonable fee for guiding these resources to better results. However, this is where the tricky part comes in. What is a reasonable fee for your efforts and how should you get that fee? There are two ways to go about it: earn them or steal them. Stealing is on the other end of the management effectiveness spectrum from stewardship. Stealing can come in a variety of forms of which some are legal and some are illegal. You can simply take what is not yours, or you can take what is available to you for the taking. The former is obviously stealing, and the latter is where you have to decide on what you think is the right thing to do. I encourage you to ask yourself, "Am I being a good steward, or am I simply taking as much from the organization as I possibly can?" Stealing is not always crystal clear, and many times you will have to decide for yourself whether you're acting as a steward or a thief. If your goal is to be a long-term great manager, I encourage you to stay on the side of stewardship every time.

My father passed away last week. He was truly a great and humble person. He and Mom taught me a great deal about the concept of stewardship. They guided everything they had to help each of their six kids to do as well as we could do in whatever we were trying to do at that given moment. To me, they were absolutely perfect examples of being great stewards. They never stole the credit, the glory, or the riches from another person. They carefully and responsibly managed the resources that were entrusted to them to raise children who hopefully are delivering strong value to other people.

Get Better

I haven't met every manager on the planet, but of the ones I've met I've never seen anyone be a perfect manager on day one. The very best managers I've ever seen simply started on the road as a manager, and then worked to get better each day. Here's an interesting quote from a new book called, Genius 101: Creators, Leaders, and Prodigies by Keith Simonton: "Geniuses are those who have the intelligence, enthusiasm, and endurance to acquire the needed expertise in a broadly valued domain of achievement and who then make contributions to that field that are considered by peers to be both original and highly exemplary."

I'm not a big fan of the word "genius," but I do think that definition applies to great managers. They always had the ability to become great managers, they had the passion to stay the course long enough to hone their craft as managers, and they applied their skills in ways that made an exemplary difference for their customers and organizations.

You may or may not become famous or fabulously wealthy as a business manager, but always remember that you perform the critically important role in making our economy strong and successful both over the short term and the long term.

Great Performers are in the Patience Industry

Shift your focus for the moment away from the recession and other bad news. In your mind, put a spotlight on the greatest performers you've ever known. Visualize them. Take it all in. Step back and look with a panoramic view at how they got to where they were able to deliver an amazing performance. It doesn't matter their age level or type of activity or industry or title. Just step back in awe and let their performance teach you the lessons for your lifetime.

This is one of my favorite activities. I just love, and have always loved, studying extraordinary performers. I've done it since I was eight years old. I'm not nearly as interested in what life is like at the top of the mountain, but rather what happened on the way up the mountain. One of the reasons I do this is because for truly great performers there is no mountaintop, there is only the next mountain to climb. Over the past nearly forty years I've landed on a few common traits of superior performers, and the most common one, the one that every single truly great performer has mastered, is patience.

Great performers are patient beyond short-term results. They are patient beyond great failures and great successes. They are patient beyond being laughed at or being given false praise. They are patient beyond being told they can't succeed and beyond being told they are the greatest in the world. They all simply continue to move forward regardless of what other people say toward improving their performance in their desired area.

(If you want to read a far more in-depth explanation of this concept and how it applies to business management, I encourage you to click here and read Chapter One in my new book, The Management 500: http://www.thecoughlincompany.com/The_Management_500_ch1.pdf.)

Nelle Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird

My brother, Kevin, gave me a remarkably powerful book recently called, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles Shields. Harper Lee wrote the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, in 1960. It went on to become the best-selling piece of literature of the 20^th Century and to date has sold more than thirty million copies. For this book, Nelle Lee won the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This book has been taught in countless high schools and colleges and has affected an incredible number of lives with its core message of tolerance and open-mindedness toward other people. That's a pretty high mountaintop to reach.

However, it wasn't until I read Mockingbird that I knew the story of her climb up the mountain. Harper Lee, who really went by Nelle Lee, left law school in late 1949 and moved to New York in 1950. She lived extremely frugally in a cold-water only apartment. She worked as a reservation clerk for Eastern Air Lines by day and wrote by night. From 1950-1956 she dedicated herself to honing her craft in her humble little apartment. Then in December 1956 she received a remarkable gift. Her friends, Michael and Joy Brown, gave her a check that allowed her not to work for one year while she focused on her writing. From 1957-1959, with considerable input from her literary agent and editor, she crafted To Kill A Mockingbird.

This is the age-old story of success. Maintain focus for at least five years on one performance area, get a critically important break or two from an unexpected source, and then continue to focus on improving your performance. This simple formula for great performance has been demonstrated over and over, and has been written about so many times that you would think every person could apply it easily. But, alas, that is not what happens.

Dale Earnhardt, Sr.

Last year I studied the history of auto racing. One of the most intriguing stories for me was the story of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. In 1979, at the very old age of twenty eight, he became a rookie driver in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, known as the Sprint Cup Series today. He had spent ten years looking for an opportunity to drive in the Winston Cup Series, but no major sponsor would support him. Then in 1979 Rod Osterlund believed in Earnhardt and gave him a chance and the money he needed.

Dale Earnhardt, Sr. won the Rookie-of-the-Year in 1979 and followed that with the first win of his seven Winston Cup Series Championships in 1980. He went from a complete unknown to one of the biggest brand names in his sport. He was patient through the very bad times and the very good times and constantly strove to raise his level of performance.

No Easy Victories

John Gardner, one of my all-time favorite writers, wrote a truly great book in 1968 called No Easy Victories. This book is remarkably relevant for many of the issues we are dealing with as a country today. He wrote, "How can we preserve our aspirations and at the same time develop the toughness of mind and spirit to face the fact that there are no easy victories?" He went on to say, "Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by `doin' what comes naturally'; and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose."

To achieve greatness as a business manager or executive requires sustained, focused effort. In the end, it's hard work combined with extraordinary patience. Do you have it? Are you patient enough to persevere through amazing success and devastating failure? This is what it takes to perform at the very highest levels of achievement.

Learn From Great Failures

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great has a new book, How the Mighty Fall, that has an interesting premise. He studied companies that were considered truly great for a long period of time and then experienced incredible sustained failures. He wanted to find out what made successful companies fail. The first stage of failure is what he called "Hubris Born of Success." He wrote in the BusinessWeek May 29, 2009 issue, "Stage 1 kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place."

Check Yourself into a 30-Day Gratification Detox Center

I think this idea of "entitled success" can keep many individuals and groups from ever achieving great performances. I think the most pervasive and dangerous addiction in our society is not one of the big four (drugs, alcohol, sex, and gambling), but rather the belief that we are entitled to `treats'. As in, "I worked hard today, and I deserve a ––––– ". You can fill that blank with a variety of answers: $5 cup of coffee, trip to Mexico, an ice cream cone, a new dress, a new sports coat, a new CD, an addition to our house, a new car" and on and on.

It seems to me that we can become so obsessed with the treat at the end of an activity that we erode our ability to remain patient until we achieve a truly great performance. Treats are fine, but they aren't going to take you to a higher level. I challenge you and me both to enter a 30-Day Gratification Detox Center. Start with just one day. For one day go about your normal activities and when you get to the point that you say, "Ok, now I deserve a little treat," respond by giving yourself nothing. That's right. Give yourself nothing. Slowly wean yourself off of the addiction that every activity, even successful activities, need to be rewarded.

You might be thinking, "Dan, this all sounds a little too puritan for my tastes. If you take out all the treats, what is left? Life would be pretty boring." If you happen to think that, then I would say, "Well, let's see. What is left? If you take out the ice cream, donuts, cookies and brownies, then what is left is great energy that you can use to improve your performance in the area that you want to be great at. If you took out the clothes, trips, and house additions, you would have more money to put toward improving your performance in the area you've chosen to be great at. If you take out the little breaks in the day to play computer games, then you would have more time to put toward improving your performance in the area you want to be great at.

Achieving an extraordinary level of performance requires patience, a lot of patience. It requires the patience to put off the rewards, or at least concentrating on the rewards, and focus on improving the actual performance you want to be great at. That means working, focusing, concentrating, searching for ways to get better, working, focusing,… It doesn't mean work a little, get a treat, work a little, get a treat,…

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America

I'm going to close this issue with a story that I think reinforces my main point in a variety of ways. On May 24, the day before Memorial Day, I went with my eight-year-old son, Ben, and 4,000 of his closest Boy Scout buddies to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. Our job was to plant a flag one foot from each of the headstones. Essentially a fairly easy task I thought. That is until I learned there are 130,000 military men and women buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. On a very hot, muggy St. Louis day these 4,000 Boy Scouts walked in silence for 30 minutes up to the ceremony, stood in quiet attention during the ceremony, and then spent the next two hours going all over the cemetery planting flags. It was an amazing experience to see tens of thousands of identical headstones spanning more than 150 years of US military members. And then to see thousands of Boy Scouts inserting their flags one at a time made the day even more impressive.

This combined effort over an extended period of time reminded me of the effort my ten-year-old daughter, Sarah, and tens of thousands of her closest Girl Scout buddies make every year in selling Girl Scout cookies. It is their sustained effort that makes the Girl Scouts of America such an extraordinary organization.

Is it possible that we adults need to learn from our children how patience can generate truly extraordinary performances?

Transferable Skills and How to Showcase Them

Don't believe them. When companies tell you they aren't hiring because of the recession, don't believe them. What they mean to say is that during a recession they are very, very discerning about who they hire and who they keep on their team. However, every company is always hiring as long as they believe they are getting an amazingly talented person who fits well within their culture.

Transferable skills are what will make you a person of interest in multiple industries. I define a skill as something you do with a high degree of competency and passion. A transferable skill is one that can be taken from one type of job and applied successfully in another job. An x-ray technician can't take his ability to read an x-ray into the hospitality industry, but he can take his ability to understand and solve complicated technical issues and use that skill to add great value to a company in the hospitality industry.

Your job is to know your skills, hone your skills, showcase your skills, and charge for your skills, in that order. Too often I've seen people charge for skills they plan on developing later. They might get through the door once with that approach, but they won't build a great career that way. Think of your skills as a new product your company wants to sell and eventually make a lot of money with. First, your company would work to understand what product would be of value to their customers. Then it would work to create and improve the product. Then it would let customers know that the product is available by showcasing it in a variety of ways. And then it would charge an appropriate amount in order to generate a profit for the business. This is the same four steps I want you to consider in accelerating your career.

Step One: Know Your Transferable Skills

The first step in accelerating your career is to understand what you do well and with passion. This has nothing to do with your current age, years of experience, title, income, height, gender, race, or anything else. When you strip away everything else, what you're left with is the value you bring to any situation and that is the combination of your strengths and your passions.

Write down your answers to this question, "What do I do well with passion?"

As I mentally scanned across the more than 150 executives I've personally coached, I've landed on one that I will use as my example in this article, even though the person's name was not Art. He identified his transferable skills as the following:

Art's Transferable Skills (what he did well with passion)

• Very organized. Always shows up on time prepared for the discussion.

• Exceptionally good listener in private conversations and large forums.

• Starts each day with a checklist and stays maniacal in getting things off the check list.

• Very good at facilitating group discussions and drawing input from a variety of people.

• Can both take and give directions in a professional, classy manner.

• Can explain plans to a group in a friendly, down-to-earth manner.

• Willing to change approaches depending on the makeup of the group.

Step Two: Hone Your Transferable Skills

Once you know the transferable skills you bring to the party, the next step is to make each of them better. Just as Apple continually works to improve each new iteration of its iPhone and Disney/Pixar Animation Studios works to improve each new film it makes, you need to continually sharpen your transferable skills.

Art worked very hard over a number of years to improve his good listening skills in order to become a fantastic listener, his facilitating skills to become the person everyone wanted to facilitate meetings, and his public-speaking skills to be an even more polished speaker that more people could feel comfortable listening to.

Step Three: Showcase Your Transferable Skills

Of course, having well-honed transferable skills will not help your career if no key decision-maker knows about them. You have to put these skills into motion where the right people can see you in order for them to consider you for new positions. Unfortunately, most of these opportunities come disguised in "no or low pay" options. Who cares? Think of them as "career accelerating" options. Just as a great new product needs to be nurtured in the marketplace until customers know about it, your skills have to be demonstrated over and over until the right people notice them.

Make a list of every opportunity you can think of to demonstrate your skills, both inside and outside of your current organization. The objective is to get people talking about your skills. Here are a dozen or so ways I've seen people demonstrate their skills:

• Join a local professional association and volunteer to run a fund-raising event. Demonstrate your organizational and leadership skills.

• Offer to emcee an important community event. Do a killer job in your opening and closing remarks and in keeping the event moving smoothly and on time.

• Volunteer to mentor up-and-coming employees in your organization. This is what Art did. After three of his protégés proved to be highly successful employees, Art was promoted into a far more senior management position.

• Offer to work with long-term difficult clients. Demonstrate your ability to solve problems and create win-win scenarios for the company and the customer.

• Start a not-for-profit organization on a volunteer basis and make an enormous impact in your neighborhood. I saw one person collect hundreds of baseball gloves, bats, and balls and then take them to the poorest neighborhoods in the Dominican Republic. A lot of people sat up and took notice of his organizational and inspirational skills.

• Join a local Toastmasters group and/or take a Dale Carnegie Course on public speaking. You will meet a few dozen people from a variety of organizations and they will hear you speak on topics of your choice. One really good speech can lead to several really good conversations that might lead to all kinds of things.

• Become a board member of an association that you care deeply about. Take your responsibility as seriously as you do your own job. Demonstrate that you can be on time, prepared, and willing to tackle touchy subjects.

• Inside your organization take a lateral assignment overseas to show you can operate successfully in multiple cultures.

• Take a pay cut to move into a different department in order to let new people see your specific skills.

• Offer to do a breakout session at a national trade conference to demonstrate your skills in front of a variety of decision-makers and recommenders in other companies.

• Get involved in community groups such as a religious organization, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, Optimists Club, Rotary Clubs, and so on. In casual conversations be willing to add value to what the other person wants to achieve.

• Head up a high school or college reunion. Demonstrate expertise in social networking tools and other technological ways of enhancing the event.

• Write articles for your in-house publications and trade publications both in your industry and outside your industry. Articles are a great way to deliver value to other people.

Step Four: Charge for Your Transferable Skills

In the end, your transferable skills are of great value to a number of organizations. Don't take them lightly. You've spent years honing and showcasing these skills. They quite literally are your stock in trade. But don't toss them around lightly. Just as a great product deserves to demand a great price, you definitely will have earned the right to request a strong compensation package. If you don't take the value of what you bring to an organization seriously, how can you expect other people to do so?

You can deliver value at low prices during the showcasing stage, but when it comes down to the hiring stage you need to ask for what you honestly believe you're worth. Don't start low with the expectation your income will rise dramatically. If your new employer can get your transferable skills on a full-time basis at a low price, why will he or she double your salary in a short time? Your new boss knows the value he or she is receiving because you've already showcased it. Now you need to request the value you think you deserve in the form of compensation.

There they are. Four steps to leverage your transferable skills and accelerate your career.