Contents
0. Opinion
1. Leadership
Serial: Ready
for leading in troubled waters? (2/3)
2. Career Development
Regular Feature:
Recruitment Tips: Dealing with your weaknesses
3. Coaching
Viewpoint: Case
Study: The "Conflict Animal"
4. News
Seminars, New Articles, ...
5. Management Tip
Sales Management:
"Material Discounts"
0. Opinion
Dear Reader in "Progress!",
"We are entering the Information
Age", "You must manage the Knowledge", ...
...are popular statements for the past
couple of years. There is an increasing number of books embracing
such topics. As always, with the emergence of such trends, the trendsetters
offer solutions on how to deal with them, be it through training,
consulting or "information" technology (IT). They want us
to believe that a quick-fix solution is available.
Many Chief Executive Officers are afraid
that they might miss out on these trends and happily accept such services
through sheer F.E.A.R* of time running out on them.
More often than not, it is forgotten
that profound acquisition of knowledge actually happens only through
self-experience whereas knowledge learned from the outside is usually
"second hand". Second hand knowledge, however, will never
lead to outstanding results unless it is combined with one's OWN creativity
and a process of self-experience by trial and error. This, of course,
is a process which takes considerably more time than the quick fixes
available from the outside.
Professional Coaches specialize in guiding
their clients upon entering and going through the process of this
creative self-experience, a process which is initially more time consuming
but in return, provides a sound basis for rapid and effective progress.
Lao Tse already said: "He who knows
others, is learned. He who knows himself, is wise". Hence, I
wish you, the wiser, to reap the benefits, not only for yourself,
but also for your environment.
Yours sincerely,
Charlie Lang
Executive Coach and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
* False Expectations
Appearing Real
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1. Leadership
Serial:
Ready for leading in troubled waters (Part 2/3)
"Are you strong enough to lead
your company out of troubled waters?"
Part
1/3 Intro & Analysis ("Progress!" Issue No. 1)
Part 2/3 Taking Action & Potential Barriers
("Progress!" Issue No. 2)
Part 3/3 Enemies & Support ("Progress!" Issue
No. 3)
Part 1 described the necessary mental
state of mind required to successfully cope with this difficult task
whereas Part 2 provides you with the basic rules how to actually move
forward and which potential barriers may be considered.
Taking Action
After accepting the dramatic extent
of the crisis, immediate action must be taken to stop the bleeding
and to change the course of the company. It is totally normal that
the management has certain doubts about the correct way to deal with
such a difficult situation. Any decision has to be made under tremendous
time pressure. And if the leader is true to himself, he/she must admit
that it is impossible to foresee the full consequences of such decisions.
And yet, action needs to be taken.
In a crisis, the available options are
usually rather limited. The leader MUST decide to choose one despite
any existing doubts. It is now vital to follow through without further
compromises, and those who are not strong enough to bear the burdens
involved should better resign and leave this tough job to someone
else.
Of course, if a decision proves to be
wrong, the leader must be able to accept it and change the direction.
However, as long as this does not happen too often, it is not too
critical. Much more critical is a situation where the leader does
NOT take any decisions out of fear it could be the wrong one. This
will certainly lead to the "death of the patient".
Also, it is important that the management
tries to unite the staff as much as possible in the fight for survival
of the company. This is best achieved by transparent and truthful
communication of the facts and the turnaround strategy, rather than
with show of charisma, as employees tend to be very sensitive about
the true situation.
Potential Barriers
How should the management react to the
increasing number of rumours? It will not be possible to completely
control it. Again, the best way to minimize rumours is to communicate
clearly and to ensure that information from the top is not being manipulated
on the way down.
Another potential barrier to a successful
turnaround strategy is the behaviour of the management. It is amazing
sometimes how certain leaders ask their staff to accept pay cuts,
reductions in spendings, etc., while increasing the salaries of the
management, despite a dramatic loss-making situation. The management
should not be so naive to believe that the employees would not get
to know about such self-serving behaviour. Needless to say, this will
kill the last bit of the staff's motivation.
Second Rule:
Turnaround Management requires courageous taking of action, relentless
follow-through and a strong sensitivity about the potential barriers
involved. Expect a high level of uncertainty and check out whether
you are made for this tough job!
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2. Career Development
Regular
Feature: Recruitment
Tips: Dealing with your weaknesses
Let's assume that everybody has, besides
strengths, some weaknesses which may potentially develop into problems.
You think it may be possible that you
tend to be a bit lazy? Yes? That would be completely wrong! You are
an adult and can be expected to "know" it, not only to think
that it is possible. The first step to effectively dealing with weaknesses
is an uncompromising self-assessment. Possibilities for self-assessment
include capturing of feedback "top down" from your superiors,
teachers, parents and "bottom up" from your coworkers or
fellow students. Professional help in this assessment process can
be sought from coaches or certified assessment specialists.
After a thorough analysis you now discover
that you have - undoubtedly - certain weaknesses. One possibility
is to ignore these and go on as usual. That, of course, is out of
question for you. Hence, you can consider doing something about it:
seminars, books, trainers, etc. Now you may be surprised, but I recommend
NOT to do that. I am not talking about learning, but about trying
to reduce your weaknesses in order to enhance your career, because
it is quite useless. By investing lots of effort and energy, you may
develop your skills in that area from bad to average. However, for
those interested in a career it is crucial to consider: only an "excellent"
in relevant areas will speed up your career, since a "good"
performance is expected anyway. "Average" is already critical
and "bad" is totally unacceptable.
As a consequence, stay away from things
you are not at least "good" at; rather look for jobs where
you can make use of your strengths and where your weaknesses don't
come in your way.
What about courses, learning, self-development?
Of course! However, only in areas where you are already good and where
you can become brilliant and greatly succeed. A good leader sends
not his weakest, but his strongest speaker to a rhetoric course. The
weaker one he keeps away from important public speeches.
Conclusion:
Focusing on your weaknesses may be a waste of time as you may only
develop from "bad" to "average". Focusing on
your strengths leads to excellence and thus to outstanding results.
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3. Coaching
View
Point: Case Study
(1/2): The Conflict Animal
One of my clients raised
the issue that he feels he is not coping adequately with conflicts
he is facing in his personal and professional life. I asked him why
he feels that way and how he is dealing with the conflicts. He mentioned
that in his personal life, he would do everything possible to avoid
conflicts. If they were unavoidable, he would try to talk about it
with his wife but he often somehow feels that the conflict has not
been resolved properly. He also stated that he sees conflicts as a
potential threat to his relationship with his wife. In his professional
life, whenever he is confronted with a conflict among his staff or
with his boss, he feels very exhausted afterwards even though the
conflict might have been resolved.
I asked him to describe
what a conflict means to him by choosing an animal and describing
this "conflict animal". He chose the wolf and used the words
"sly", "dangerous", "hurting", "surprising",
"strong" and "unpredictable" to describe him.
Then I asked him whether this "conflict animal" could be
useful for something. After thinking it over for a while he said that
this wolf could confront you with your limits, for you to understand
how strong you are. Eventually, by interacting with the wolf, you
could learn how to deal with dangers.
Probably there is hardly
an issue in human relationships as controversial as conflicts. On
one hand, they are part of our daily life; on the other hand, we often
undertake everything to avoid or suppress conflicts. Conflicts confront
us with our self-esteem and eventually we feel that our personality
is at question which in return can cause existential fears in us.
Reflecting on the deeper
reasons for conflicts, it becomes obvious that they are more than
plain aggression. Persons who are creating the conflict usually want
to achieve something and they are ready to invest considerable energy
to reach their goals. Hence, suppression and avoidance of conflicts
actually block this energy, which could have been deviated to achieve
useful results.
Active conflict management
is a core responsibility of any corporate leader. Creating transparency
of existing or potential conflict energies and then seeking ways to
constructively resolve them will tremendously increase the productivity
of the teams involved. The same applies equally in the personal environment
where conflicts can be a means to reach a deeper understanding of
your partner or friends, thus improving the personal relationships.
Conclusion:
Don't be afraid of the "conflict animal". It can make
you aware of your "self" and - if properly dealt with
- help you improve your professional and personal relationships.
In the next issue
of "Progress!", I will elaborate on how to effectively lead
conflicts to productive results.
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4. News
For upcoming seminars
& events please click here:
http://www.progressu.com/Seminars.htm
For recent Articles
on Coaching please click here:
http://www.progressu.com/ArticlesonCoaching.htm
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5. Management Tip
Sales
Management: "Material Discounts"
If you were ever involved
in B2B sales, you would know this situation perfectly: you had tough
negotiations with your potential buyer, you tried to convince him
of the benefits your customers reap from your products and/or services,
eventually you even already granted a considerable discount. And yet,
the buyer is not ready to close the deal as the price still seems
too high compared with that of the competitor's products.
The good news is that
the buyer is still talking to you, i.e. she or he really wants your
product but cannot yet justify your best price so far. What do you
do? Further lower your price and completely spoil your margin? Actually
you don't want to go there and yet, you want this deal.
There is a way out of
this, which is rarely considered or applied. Why don't you offer instead
what I call a "material discount"? Why don't you offer other
products/services from your company free of charge at the value of
the expected additional discount? The advantage of this strategy is
threefold:
a) Your actual discount,
i.e. your cost for this material discount is much lower than the value
of the discount
b) You make the buyer
use more of your equipment/services thus further spreading your brand
name
c) The final $$ price
of your product/service is not extremely low which would be still
tolerable in a one-off deal. However, you may want repeat-business,
so the next time your buyer will want the same $$ price whereas the
material discount is not so obvious anymore after some time has passed.
Don't get discouraged
if this strategy doesn't work every time; it is always worth trying.
Conclusion:
You can avoid spoiling your price level, increase your profit margin
and promote your brand name by granting a "material discount"
instead of a monetary discount.
