Category: Adapt, Innovate, Win

Four tools for turning decisions into action

I find that the most successful people have tools and systems for turning their decisions into actions.  The things I decided to do in life are not nearly as important as the things I actually do.  Deciding to get exercise, learn a new skill, get a better job, start a new business, and so on through New Year’s resolutions, frequent or occasional inspirations, or anything else that seems appealing yet may be fleeting without something bringing forth the action to complete the vision.

Have a partner or a team.  The Internet has isolated so many of us that we lack the benefit of having other people who start the day at the same time, end the day at the same time, and share processes and ideas to keep the project moving.

Google, IDEO, Apple, Campbell, Exxon Mobil, and nearly every other business use business teams to carry out their goals.

I have read criticisms of teams or, rather, committees, for the ways that joint efforts can throw projects off track.  As I read these criticisms, I find is that the problem is not in the team concept but the team selection and structure.

Start with a team manager who can bring leadership, direction, motivation, energy and focus to the team.  Add team members with different, complimentary skills and experience.  For example, if you are creating a financial planning team, the team leader might be from the finance department, but the members might be from a variety of departments who can add ability and creativity to the team.

In many cases, the team leader report to a director of teams who is not a member of any team, but is the person who appoints members to the teams, and directs the teams through the team leaders.  The head of marketing or sales or any other department might supervise the team leaders for innovation, product development, insights, labeling, advertising, branding.

Teams come together in meetings.  Scheduling meeting to afford the greatest use of the skills of each employee is critical.  A demand planner might take part in team meetings for finance, sales, marketing, and logistics.

A head football coach might be a good example of a team director.  The head coach has team leaders who manage the development and success of specialty teams in modern football:  quarterback coach, special teams coach, linebacker coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, offensive line coach, secondary coach, strength coach, defensive line coach, and coaches with special skills in working with kickers for punting, kickoffs, on-sides kicks, and field goals.

On a small-scale, your team might just be you and your partner.  In a family business, the team might be two sisters or a mother and daughter in a garage, a kitchen, or in the case of a new household product, even the bathtub, where they create the vision, draw up the plan, develop the financing, and maybe even create the products right where they will use the product.

Gordon LeBoeuf, the person who trained me recruit, owned one of the top four executive search firms in the nation and owned the Carter/Bryant  (named after Amon Carter and Bear Bryant) employment agency in Houston.  Prior to recruiting, LeBoeuf had played professional football and had worked as a national marketing manager for Pfizer Pharmaceutical.

His advice was that I needed two things:  (1) someone to work with and (2) a place to go to work.

Develop outside sources.  Reading and listening to motivational and inspirational speakers that talk about my own goals is very helpful.  Reading, watching videos, or listening to speakers who have been successful at achieving their goal creates the motivation and provides the instruction for getting the job done.

Find a quiet place and a quiet time.  I have found times when I have become so absorbed in reaching my goals that I failed to recognize that I was too tired to be effective.  Failing to act was not tripping me up.  Stopping to rest was tripping me up.  Walking away from my desk and sitting somewhere else, some place quiet and restful, can bring tremendous energy and clarity.

Act motivated.  Acting motivated can bring real motivation, enthusiasm, and energy.  I have found that simply performing the actions of being happy, motivated, and full of energy can result in my being happy, motivated, and full of energy.

1. Smiling, even when I am alone
2. Clapping my hands or snapping my fingers with or without a crowd or music
3. Saying “thank you,” especially to myself
4. Singing, especially when I am alone
5. Giving compliments, even to myself: “You did a great job!”

If you find that you have skills that are no longer needed in your current industry, you feel discouraged.  The ever-changing employment landscape often leaves people with industry-based skills and no employment market for those skills.  You are not alone, and you do have options.

The first week I worked as a recruiter I received a call from a man who had just lost his job from a reduction in force.  He worked at General Foods in the Jello™ division.   General Foods had merged the Jello™ division with the cereal division and fired half of the sales organization from those two divisions.

The man faced a large challenge, because companies across the food industry were merging divisions and merging with other companies.  However, he was fortunate to get a sales job in the medical industry.  The training at General Foods gave him the skills to sell.  A medical company considered those skills as transferable skills for selling their equipment.

There are challenges to changing industries.  Most people have transferable skills.  However, headhunters, hiring managers, and staffing people often face mountains of resumes.  They are focusing on close fits.  Scrutinizing resumes closely for crossover skills is a challenge for these people.  Also, professional networks lose value for most people seeking to transition into a new industry, because most people build professional networks around people who work in the same industry.

The first challenge is to find companies outside your industry who hire people with your skills.   

1. Make a list of companies and industries that appeal to you.
2. Determine if other people at those places have a similar background to your own.
3. Evaluate the overall experience of these people in terms of other skills and experience that you might have in common.

The second challenge is expanding your network to the new industry.  You will probably find better success in getting an interview if you know the hiring manager and can get your résumé directly into that person’s hands.  Here are some suggestions.

1. 1. Ask a member of your network to give you an introduction to the hiring manager.
   2. If you can not get an introduction to the hiring manager, attempt to network with that person through the Internet.
   3. Join professional organizations that can give you introductions.
   4. Attend trade shows where you can make new connections.
   5. Backtrack through your network to find people who have transitioned from your current industry to a new industry.
   6. When you do send out your résumé, make sure that it markets your transition skills through highlighting your experience and your other training.
   7. Edit your résumé and interview agenda to highlight your qualifications for each specific company you are seeking to join.

   A third challenge is that your skills are just not as strong as those of people already in the industry you are seeking to join.

   1. Strengthen your marketable skills with more training.
   2. Become an expert on the new industry you are seeking to join. Write your cover letter and résumé to show what you know about that industry.
   3. Head back to school to get a diploma, degree, credential, certification, or advanced degree.

   Keep your chin up and think positive.  At one point in my career, I called a Procter & Gamble sales manager to introduce myself.  He informed me that I did not need to introduce myself, because he and I had spoken.  A few years earlier, he had called me to get help with his career.  At the time, he was working for a small regional company.  I told him that I would not be able to help him, because I specialized in recruiting sales people who worked for large consumer products companies.   He said that I had mentioned Procter & Gamble specifically.  Continuing to work for the regional company, he got an MBA and then applied at Procter & Gamble, where his career progressed rapidly.

   Remember that you are not alone nor unique.   Many people find that they need to consider transitioning to a new industry.   You are not alone in your trials.  If you concentrate on building your network and your skills, you do not have to work alone in your efforts.

3 Short, Powerful Meeting Practices

There are some simple business practices that will make your business meetings more comfortable and more productive.

Think of your surroundings. Save your elevator pitch for nearly any place but the elevator.  People are confined and often feel awkward in elevators.  Also, there is a risk that someone could walk in on your pitch.  You never want to discuss your client’s business in front of strangers.

Wait until you step out of the elevator and start your presentation with a question that will focus attention on your pitch.

Carry a pen and paper to every business meeting.  Nearly everyone takes notes on a laptop or cell phone.  This skill is effective for safely and conveniently saving your notes.  The skill is also efficient.  However, when you get an idea during a meeting and want to press a point that is not included in a prepared presentation, passing your electronic device around at a meeting or across a table at a business lunch is probably not in your best interest.

Learn the art of the pen and paper presentation.  Sometimes abandoning your prepared presentation may be more effective than sticking to it.  A simple note on a piece of paper may be very powerful  I know doctors who explain complicated conditions by turning over pages of lab results and jotting a few notes for patients to see what the results mean.

In my own career, I have saved countless sales for advertising support and product purchases by using the same method of writing a few facts and figures down in front of the buyer to help the person understand what I was saying.

1. Skills
2. Talent
3. Experience
4. Personality
5. Knowledge
6. Personal Goals
7. Potential for Long-Term Success

The purpose of this series of articles is to enable employers to make better hiring decisions by understanding exactly what decisions are involved in making a great hire.  Coming to the right decision in making a great hire is making the correct decisions on an  applicant’s talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential, long-term success, and personal goals for the initial job and for the roles to which that job leads.  In other words, do the applicant and the job a match?

In the first two articles in this series, I discussed talent as a combination of aptitude and intelligence.

Skills are the ability to perform task:  typing, juggling, working equations, flying a plane, driving a nail, creating a document.  The more talent (aptitude and, depending on the skill, intelligence) a person has for a particular skill, the more quickly that person will develop that skill and the more effective that person will become at performing that skill.

Some skills may take time to develop.  Operating a light switch is pretty easy skill.  Operating three switches on the same panel, some people never get even in their own home.

A skilled mechanic may know every instrument, dial, nut, and bolt on a race car but not have the skill to drive the race car around the block.  The most talented race car driver exceeds two hundred miles an hour on intuition.  He has a terrific driving aptitude.  Yet despite being told over and over which direction to turn a bolt (lefty loosey righty tighty), the same race car driver may not be able to remove a tire from that same race car.  The driver may have no talent for mechanical skills.

In making a great hire, the hiring company will test a person’s skills.  The job requires that a person type 80 words per minute with allowance for one mistake every 80 words.   The company has the applicant  take a typing test.  A position requires that a person be able to prepare and deliver an executive presentation, the best hiring companies give the person an opportunity to prepare and deliver an executive presentation.

To close this article and position the next article in the series, it is perhaps best to remember that in making a hire, the hiring company is not looking to hire the most talented, skillful, knowledgeable, charismatic, experienced, goal-oriented person who has the greatest potential to actualize talent and the greatest track record for long-time success for each and every job.  Coming to the right decision in making a great hire comes from examining those seven areas and making the correct decision as to whether the applicant fits for the roles to which that job leads.

The next article will cover knowledge.

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In the article I posted on September 27, 2012, I discussed talent as a quality in making a hiring decision.

In talent assessment, the hiring manager is attempting to know a person’s natural abilities or aptitude and, separately, a person’s intelligence.  A highly skilled house painter is the only person I would recommend to paint someone’s house.  A highly talented portrait artist is the only person I would recommend to paint someone’s portrait.  Although a highly talented portrait artist can very likely develop the skills to paint someone’s house, a highly skilled painter is less likely to have the natural ability to paint portraits.  A house painter may have talents in many areas, including portrait art, but most house painters are not talented portrait artist.

Testing for aptitude and intelligence is costly.  A shortcut to paying for testing is to hire from companies that hire great people.  Other reliable sources are great universities and junior military officers.  Many companies return to sources that have worked for them in the past.

A person who graduated from a top-ranked university, became a military officer, and received an MBA has been through a lot of excellence screening. Procter & Gamble’s CEO, Robert McDonald, is an example of that type of background.  McDonald graduated the United Sates Military Academy, served fives years as a military officer, and graduated from an MBA program.

If you need to hire talented people with experience, the type of experience required can vary from position to position.  However, to find a talent testing method that is reliable and free, a hiring manager might look at the college a person attended and at the person’s major in college. If the person had military experience, a hiring manager might also consider the military specialty (for aptitude) and the rank held when the person left the military.

Grade point average and major in college are important and I will discuss these two elements in some of the articles to follow