December 2013

Make Time for the Work That Matters (Post 4 of 4)

In my previous three posts on “Making Time for Work that Matters” I have recapped an interesting article by the same name that appeared in the Harvard Business Review. I found it interesting that editors at HBR chose to place that article in the magazine’s regular, “managing yourself” section. At Intertech, figuring out what’s important and where we should placing our effort is definitely a management priority.

That’s why we use Key Results Areas (KRAs) with every employee. If you’ve read my book, “Building a Winning Business,” you already know I’m a passionate believer in KRAs! They are an effective tool for keeping everyone moving in the right direction. They provide a simple framework for regular “one-on-one” meetings between managers and staff. And they help us all remember that ongoing learning is essential to strong employee and company performances. Here’s an example of how they are identified, which happens as part of a dialogue between employees and managers:

#	KRA	Goal
1	Sales	$2.5M
2	Learning	Complete negotiation training course at local university, finish book on effective use of LinkedIn for sales
3	Special Projects	Complete the guideline for onboarding new sales team members—each step must be SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound).

We also include narrative sections covering related duties/activities, performance evaluation standards and skills/knowledge required for each. If knowledge gaps exist, we include a plan for how they will be addressed.

KRAs are limited to five, but should include at least three, and they must be discussed regularly to be effective. We use them as the agenda for regular update meetings between managers and employees. This helps our people know what we value and gives them a valuable baseline against which to measure their day-to-day activities. It also gives them a regular way to let us know what’s happening and if they are bumping up against any barriers.

KRAs are not intended to be a Billy club. Rather, they are more like a spotlight that helps cut through the fog. We keep the KRA dialogues open, ongoing and positive. Besides increasing everyone’s likelihood of success, KRAs used in this way eliminate any unpleasant surprises (for anyone) at annual performance reviews. Using KRAs in combination with the self-assessment tool developed by Birkinshaw and Cohen could be a powerful one-two punch in your and your employees’ daily fight with the clock!

Keep It Simple Stupid

What do Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tupperware have in common?

Based on a recent article in The Economist, simplicity.

According the magazine’s Schumpeter column (Schumpeter is the economist who coined the phrase creative destruction), “… Tupperware has three million freelance salespeople, working everywhere from plush Austrian suburbs to Indian slums. TCS employs almost 300,000 people to solve complex technological problems. (they both)… agreed that the only way to avoid being blinded by complexity is to concentrate on the few simple things that can give their businesses focus and their workers direction.”

The Economist goes on to share “most successful businesses thrive on simplicity of some sort. German Mittelstand companies are doing well by focusing on narrow niches. Built-to-last companies, such as Coca-Cola, are masters of distilling their corporate identity into a simple formula which employees can internalise and customers can easily recognise. McDonald’s is a global success because its business model is so simple and replicable.” (The Economist is a British publication so there are three words in this paragraph that a U.S. spell check will show as incorrect ;-).

I agree. At Intertech, we strive to keep it simple:

In overall guiding principles–For a over a decade we’ve had one mission, one purpose, three values, and three guiding principles. We repeat these every month at our all company meetings.
Goals–Every year, at our strategic planning meeting where we outline goals for the next year, we limit the number of goals to no more than three. This creates clarity. This also creates accountability (e.g. if the person in charge of 10 goals says s/he accomplished 3, it sounds good. If the person in charge of one goal says s/he didn’t accomplish anything, it sounds not so good)
When explaining things–the leadership team talks in plain terms (e.g. “what we sold last month” not stuff like “top line generation”)

KISS.