Billy’s Forty-Seventh Law: Don’t overlook your steady performers.

I was talking to a friend the other day and she told me that she felt underappreciated at work.  “I do exactly what is expected and yet I don’t think that I am perceived as a ‘rising star’ in the company.”  Although my friend works for a larger firm, I wondered just how common this might be in smaller enterprises. 

Some people are good at their jobs.  To use ‘familial language’ they are the sensible sons and the dutiful daughters.  They are always on time.  They are low maintenance. They always show up for work and put in extra time.  Often we overlook these individuals for praise or promotion. 

There are many career books and seminars coaching people on how to get the recognition they deserve in the work place.  I can understand this in a large corporation or organization.  In a smaller enterprise, this should never happen.  In large companies, the individual plans and executes his or her own career path.  In smaller enterprises, there is no excuse for this.  There should be no need.  As an owner or a manager in a smaller enterprise, the skills, abilities, potential and performance of each individual is apparent.  There simply is no place to hide.

The problem is management.  Just as we are acutely aware of the individuals, we should also be careful to manage well. We must not quit managing just because we do not need a change in behaviour.  These sensible sons and dutiful daughters are keeping our companies in business.  Consistency and reliability count.  Sometimes, as leaders (as someone once said, you manage tasks you lead people), we fail to do the obvious…lead those already going in the right direction. 

Many entrepreneurs manage by exception.  They only lead when something is wrong.  They fail to lead or manage when things are going well.  Now think of people.  If we only take action when the extraordinary occurs, such as a huge success or a major failure, we send the message that we are only interested outlier behaviours, and not in the 95% of behaviours and actions happening within the ‘normal’ range of activity. 

This is just plain dumb…yet it happens all of the time.  I know two things about all companies.  Firstly, they have people they should fire and have not done it yet.  Secondly, they have the steady performers whose contribution is invaluable yet who are not recognised and underappreciated.  This is a management failure…a leadership failure and a commercial failure. 

Many superstars are working for smaller firms, for less money than they could make for large corporations for life style and personal reasons.  As smaller enterprises, you probably cannot compete on wages, so we must work twice as hard by competing on environment. Recognition is one of the most important management roles in any organisation.  It is the most important thing in a smaller enterprise. 

By the way, if one of these ‘Steady Eddies’ begins to falter this is a warning sign.  Address the issue immediately.  You may be the source of the problem.    

Billy's Fortieth Law: Belief is stronger than logic.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

John Stuart Mill

I consider myself to be a rational and open minded individual.  I love to investigate and to make rational decisions based on the current facts available.  I see many people who have no rationale for their beliefs, and often use false logic to come to the wildest of conclusions.  Some of these are harmless, and others are potentially dangerous. 

According to VOX,” Americans ages 18 to 29 are more likely to oppose mandatory childhood vaccination and say vaccines can cause autism, according to a new survey.”  This runs against the majority of scientific belief.  But here is my point.  Another study demonstrated that when logical arguments are applied to these beliefs, those holding the belief hold it even more strongly.

So, what has this got to do with business…you may ask?  Understanding your customers’ beliefs is an essential part of consumer psychology and behaviour. Understanding your employees’ beliefs forms an important part of your corporate culture and customer experience. Unfortunately, belief is not rational.  People often feel that the truth shouldn’t get in the way of promoting their own beliefs. 

Suppose you lead an enterprise, and the employees believes “the company does not care about them, they just care about profits.”  The belief affects behaviour.  Your employees might take the following stand:  The Company doesn’t care about me, therefore I needn’t care about the company, the customers or my performance.  If you point out the employees, just how good they have it.  (Or as one boss of mine told me “You’re lucky to have a job!”) You will not change the belief, you may increase the strength of the belief and worsen behaviour.

In marketing, belief has a huge impact on consumer decision and the image your enterprise reflects to the world.  Changing beliefs is tough.  Rational arguments are rarely effective, and as I pointed out earlier, can make positions recalcitrant. 

When internally held beliefs are hurting your company, determine why people believe them.  Acknowledge the problem, and clarify any misunderstandings or down right lies.  Don’t over sell.  If people don’t feel valued, ask them why, and ask them to provide examples.  There may be some veracity in their point of view. 

The public is trickier.  Some people won’t change their minds.  All you can do is attempt to engage fairly and rationally, without being argumentative.  In the example of vaccinations, if I were a pharmaceutical company I would point out the ongoing nature of review and evaluation of my products.  This does not contradict the possibility of danger, but ensures the company is vigilant to such possibilities.  The worst thing to do is to make statements about the testing.  It only looks like justification and not explanation. 

It amazes me how often McDonalds is the target for everything from obesity to labour conditions.  In Vancouver a McDonalds was targeted to protest a "training wage".  This was a rate lower than the minimum wage to encourage employers to hire and provide experience to those without work experience. The McDonalds in question didn't even use the training wage. When this was pointed out to the activists in question, they were unapologetic saying that it didn't matter whether they were using it or not...they had the right to protest. 

To quote Taylor Swift. “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate.”  Unfortunately, it is difficult in the public arena to shake it off.

Belief is strong…faith is strong.  Whether belief in God, an economic system, a company or your local hockey team, peoples strongly held beliefs invoke strong reactions.  These are a reality every business owner and manager must understand and accept.

Billy's Thirtieth Law - Skill Three: Becoming a Strategist

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Michael E Porter. 

Running a business is important, however; it is imperative that you keep your ultimate destination in mind.  Deciding on your destination is your strategy. When we start out, or strategy is usually as simple as ‘make enough sales to avoid bankruptcy’. 

When we decide to grow our business, simply saying, “We’ll just do more of the same.”  is just not going to work.  Most businesses start as singular strategy organizations.  They sell one set of products, or provide one set of services to a fairly homogeneous customer group.  You eventually exhaust the market potential for a single service.
  

For a business that wishes to remain small, this strategy need not change.  My father was a self-employed electrical engineer.  He offered engineering services in a fairly limited geographic area.  He was limited to his own skill-set and to the number of hours he could offer for ‘sale’.  His marketing was primarily word of mouth.  He successfully operated his business for nearly thirty years.

Many entrepreneurs want to grow their businesses.  Some do this by selling the same products or services, but expanding their market size.  Others increase their product offerings and sell to their existing clients, or at least a similar market.  Others do a combination of the two, selling a new set of products to different customers.  
 

All of these represent strategic change to the company.  New strategies must be vetted…to that the entrepreneur does not just go off and to the first thing that comes to his or her head. (Oh yeah, they do that and then call people like me two years after the mistake was made.)

Here are some tips for vetting potential growth strategies in your business:

Think of several different, potential strategies that help you achieve success.You can think on pivot around things like adding products increasing customers, adding outlets or changing distribution.  Don't stray too far from your core competencies (the things you do really well) or you may end up starting a new business, and not building your existing business. 
 

1. Do your homework before taking action!  You should know how to provide the product or service, and know how your existing and potential customers will act. For example, changing your pricing strategy to acquire new customers may serve to alienate existing customers.   
2. Develop a break-even for the strategy.  Include your start-up costs, fixed and variable costs and ask determine where you need to get to in order to break even.  Look at that figure and determine if you can achieve this sales target in a reasonable period if at all.  This alone is a great vetting tool.
3. Develop a plan with milestones and budgets.  If things are not on time or on budget, reconsider the strategy.  This is also a great way to determine if you have the tactical abilities to execute the strategy.
4. Unless you are going to the moon, there is no point of no return.  As a part of your plan have a number.  For example, if this has cost us $1,000,000 and we are still not profitable, we stop.  This is difficult due to the Sunk Cost Fallacy.  This is the notion that once costs are incurred, must be recouped.  This is, of course, nonsense.  We feel we are abandoning our investment of time and money.  You are, but you are also preventing this from getting worse.  Track and take action. 
5. Try to test quickly and on a small scale.  This is the putting the toe in the water approach.  
6. Ensure that each new strategic direction pays its own way.  Each strategy must have its own business case.  

New strategies are important to growing businesses.  For many entrepreneurs, trying new stuff is far more fun than operating old stuff.  Don’t fall into the trap of doing something new for its own sake, but do some new that adds value to your enterprise.