How Are You Invested?
Simon Sinek – leadership ‘guru’ – distinguishes in business between two states: ‘financial’ and ‘emotional’ investment. If you are ‘financially invested’, you want a return. If you are ‘emotionally invested’, you want to contribute.
In this lies the difference between ‘employees’ and ‘owners’/‘entrepreneurs’. Employees are usually ‘financially invested’ – they expect a salary. They get paid monthly and, at the end of the year, may receive a handsome ‘bonus’ for performance. They will stay on another year – not for emotional, but for financial reasons. Some people work in industries they may secretly loathe merely because the financial return matches their desires. Once it doesn’t, they’ll ‘invest’ in a new one that does.
This is what governs most career management – the structuring of one’s career to ensure the continual topping up of skills to earn higher financial rewards leading to promotions that bring more financial rewards, requiring the development of more skills and so on. One of my former colleagues had a very cynical (in the opinion of some) point of view about others - that they were mainly motivated by money. Admittedly, he worked in the cutthroat world of high finance.
This doesn’t mean emotionally invested employees don’t exist – they’re what one might call the ‘loyal’ or ‘long-time’ staff (those who’ve been around ‘forever’). Equally, one finds them in the medical profession, the armed forces or the forces of law and order.
The business owner sees the business as their ‘baby’ and want to contribute to its growth, solving customer problems, making the world a better place somehow. For many employees, a salary is a salary. Some have identified that they want to earn their salaries in a particular field (finance, engineering, industry, for example. Others have a ‘calling as in medicine, teaching, the armed forces or forces of law and order.
When disagreements arise, it may well be due to the different investment the parties have. The question is: how can it be resolved in a way that both parties see the other’s point of view?
For business owners to simply say, ‘If they don’t like it, they can leave,’ fails to address the underlying emotional/financial investment issue of what workers may not ‘like’. It may also be that their requirements are unreasonable or unrealistic in the circumstances.
On the other hand, the owner may simply be unwilling to be reasonable due to an emotional attachment to whatever it is that the employees want to change. How many small businesses have failed to move on to the next stage simply because the owner felt it was ‘their baby’ and that no one else could run it better? Family businesses have often been the victims of this when the founder won’t let the next generation (their children) introduce their own ideas.
I’ve experienced cases where the children of highly successful parents have left the family business to start their own (highly successful) ones, leaving the parent to manage on their own. Those children were as emotionally invested as their parent, but the latter didn’t let them contribute. As with love unrequited, they went off and found a more worthy object of their affections.
Some people never progress beyond the stage of being financially invested, and we need them. I’ve seen larger businesses try to encourage managers to ‘treat the business as their own’ or to ‘think like entrepreneurs’, but then don’t provide the emotional rewards needed – they simply carry on thinking in terms of returns. For those who can still make an emotional connection (usually through some innate talent for the business), the rewards become both financial and emotional.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Leadership, Strategy, Teamwork
Big Picture Thinking
I’ve been in numerous situations where an ability to ‘see the big picture’ (or ‘see the wood despite the trees’) would have avoided potential damage to a business’ interests and reputation.
In all cases, a member of the team was just ‘doing their job’ (as they saw it). A small issue was spotted and the transaction held up for what (in the client’s eyes) seemed to be a petty reason that had little/no bearing or impact on the underlying issue or execution of the deal.
I’ve seen banks develop poor reputations for over-zealous checking, heard stories about travellers or applications being delayed because a form wasn’t completed in black ink (most people write in blue), or a minor ‘typo’ was highlighted.
In the case of blue vs black ink, I gather that blue ink doesn’t scan/photocopy as well as black. Whether this is sufficient in all cases to hold up the transaction is debatable. With our much-vaunted ‘advanced technology’, surely we’re capable of developing systems, scanners and copiers that can scan/copy blue ink? We already have colour photocopiers and printers, so the ability is there.
There is seldom anything more irritating than to have minor issues with little to no impact on the transaction at large being used as an excuse to delay. At times, the reason may be because managers further up the line may be ‘picky’. They need to be educated as well. It takes very little for a customer to shift their business to another organisation (governments excepted) that doesn’t make an issue of it.
There will be times, of course, when the issue isn’t so ‘minor’ and could well have legal or medical ramifications. We don’t want a decimal point in the wrong place, or transposed figures for a dosage of medication being passed through – this could kill someone. Equally, putting the decimal point in the wrong place or adding an extra ‘zero’ to a financial transaction by mistake could also spell disaster (that’s why banks, and hospitals have additional checks) as the results would be serious enough that absolute accuracy and precision are required.
Where I believe allowances can and should be made are the cases where lives, businesses and reputations are not at stake. Pettiness for the sake of scoring a point has no place in an advancing world.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Risk, Strategy
COVID and Continuity
Most businesses will (or should) have Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) for disaster scenarios. These usually cover scenarios like inaccessible premises, bad weather and other factors that may impact that particular business.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, almost every business found itself in a position of having to activate all or part of its BCP as staff were sent to work from home. Only ‘essential’ staff and businesses were permitted ‘on site’.
I’m in a country that finds itself in the middle of a ‘second wave’ of community transmission infections after over one year without any. Without wanting to go into the reasons as to why the second wave started, it is clear that one critical part of the BCP infrastructure is unable (at least temporarily) to cope with the new, increased demands on it.
I refer to broadband internet – the ‘lifeblood’ of many businesses, no matter their size and number of employees. In this case, the second wave has resulted in a much heavier load factor on the infrastructure and a consequent impact across the board.
The lesson this taught me is that BCPs are all very well, provided not everyone has to invoke them at the same time. In such a scenario, infrastructure may not be able to cope. Problems will arise.
In this case, we may have to allow for degraded service and deliveries unless we can somehow compensate by hiring extra temporary staff, buying more technology, building additional ‘excess’ (and spare) capacity (with the attendant costs that this implies) and/or demanding that ‘critical’ suppliers’ (e.g.: utility companies, internet service providers, etc.) review the critical parts of their respective BCPs.
In reality, many of us will have to acknowledge the simple truth: much as we try, we can’t control everything!
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Strategy
