Category Archives: Manage to Lead

Managed to Lead posts are organized into the categories below and are about what can be managed in order to be a better leader. There is a category for each of seven actions motivated by seven simple truths about leaders and organizations which, if followed, can help you change the world.

Manage to Lead, Plan Change

How leaders should think about the importance of determining what is most important to change next.

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Over time, organizations perform at some level.  After start-up things fall into place leading to a period of rapid growth.

Click on the graphic above for a walk through of the content in this post.

The rate of growth eventually slows and then plateaus perhaps due to new technology that spawns competition or maybe due to the organization slowing down in the face of its increased scope, scale, and complexity of operations.

At any point along the way there are three choices:

  • One is to keep doing things the way they have always been done.  Most of the time keeping things the same is the right answer because to do otherwise means constant change which leads to chaos.  On the other hand if an organization always only does that which it has done to be successful up to now someone or something will eventually overtake and possibly bury it.  One-product organizations such as some that sold buggy whips, record players, and video rentals are examples of those that rode a wave to oblivion.  Continue reading How leaders should think about the importance of determining what is most important to change next. →
Grow, Manage to Lead

How to build a “pizza-making” business.

Chief executive officers, managing directors, executive directors, and chief administrators subscribe to intelliven.com for content, cases, and tools to help organizations they lead perform and grow to their full potential. Leaders of any organization, no matter how large or small, those who aspire to be leaders, and those who help and support leaders all find the site full of valuable content, examples, and templates to help in extraordinary, as well as every day, situations. Continue reading How to build a “pizza-making” business. →

Focus, Manage to Lead, People Matters

Alternatives to a COO

Responsibilities shouldered by the Chief Executive Officer (aka: CEO, Managing Partner, Managing Director, or Executive Director) of a successful venture increase with growth in scale and complexity. The tension between the need to get things done, get others to do things, bridge the “white space” between organization units, and to represent the organization externally (e.g. to customers, investors, partners, suppliers, etc.) eventually reaches a breaking point.

Most, especially first time CEOs, get the idea to install a Chief Operating Officer (COO) as it seems an obvious way to spread the workload and ease the burden.

While adding a COO to the management team may be the right thing to do over the long-term, it is a difficult, time consuming, expensive, and risky move that is not likely to pay off in the short-term because:

  • It’s a stretch: The ideal candidate is rarely already in-house. The most capable executives in the organization are typically too vital in their current role or not appropriate given their abilities and interests. Moving them into the COO role leaves too big a hole and may be too much like asking a rabbit to swim.
  • It’s expensive: The cost to find, recruit, hire, and on-board the ideal candidate from outside the organization is significant. It takes a long elapsed time, consumes precious management time, and is expensive both in terms of search fees and the incremental cost to compensate the new person.
  • It’s risky: The odds of successfully bringing in someone from the outside are low. The failure rate of such placements is high because of how hard it is to bring a new senior player into an existing team of executives, prepare an organization for a new COO, and support the new COO in getting up to speed and powerfully assuming the role.

In light of the above, it is a good idea to consider the following alternative approaches, at least in the immediate term and certainly before taking the leap to hire a COO.

The Deputy

While the forward-thinking CEO can and should work on a long-term strategy to address their needs, there is an alternate approach to installing a COO that nets short-term improvement that may be adequate for quite some time. The approach is to define a staff role to the CEO that facilitates and drives the management operating framework thereby offloading an enormous operating burden. A person in such a role is often called a Deputy Senior Officer or a Chief of Staff and is common in military and government organizations, and in organizations that serve governments.

The Deputy can be someone with competencies that range from high-end administrative to those of a near-COO or someone who could someday be a COO or CEO.

The best strategy is to assign, from inside or hired-in, a low-ego, high-skilled person who is liked by, and non-threatening to, existing leaders and who is positioned for maximum benefit, and long-term potential, to the organization. The higher the skill level, the higher the price, the harder to find, and the more risk of sparks flying when existing leaders realize there is another strong(er) player in their midst.

The Analyst

An even less risky, less expensive, and more easily accomplished solution in the short-term is to fill the staff position with a Business Analyst that:

  • Has a high-bandwidth intellect with deep knowledge of at least one important part of the organization and who has interest and energy for all parts of the organization.
  • Has energy, capacity, and drive.
  • Is conceptual and articulate so as to be able to develop an accurate big picture from a myriad of details and to communicate complex concepts even to those who are not conceptual.
  • Has acumen for management and leadership.
  • Has a disposition that is compatible with the CEO, and who has a “long runway”; i.e., is early in their career, bright, and who is an ambitious person likely to go far.

Assigning top business analysts to staff roles is common to organizations such as IBM, Apple, and Motorola where top-flight young professionals, often graduates of top business schools with just a few years experience, are assigned as Executive Assistants to top executives for a year or two before returning to other roles in the organization. The executives get extraordinary service and the up-and-coming assistant gets a front-line education and unsurpassed opportunities to perform and grow.

To increase the odds of having such talent on staff, hire MBAs fresh-out of the top schools and groom them in the business for a few years and then assign the best to staff top executives.

On the other hand, the best MBAs have probably already been courted and hired by top consulting firms. Consequently, a shortcut is to find and retain a business analyst from a top firm on a consulting basis to work full-time in the Analyst role for a top executive. If they work out well, hire them as an employees. If not, place them elsewhere or cycle them back to where they came from and try again. I personally successfully followed this strategy as the top executive at a $200M public software company with an MBA from a top school that I retained from a top consulting firm. My assistant later went on to top roles in her own organizations including, eventually, the role of CEO.

Summary

With either approach the course of action is to define the role, conduct a search, and then design and drive a process to work with the alternative to the COO, the CEO, and the management team to bring all stakeholders on board and on track for success.

SEE ALSO

Leadership Support

Why top leaders tell everyone to never do what they are told.

Finance Matters, Manage to Lead, Sales Matters

Three Steps to Selling a Work Plan

Follow the three steps below to prepare and present a professional services workplan for a prospective customer. Those who hire service providers should also study the steps to understand how the best providers think through what they propose to do for you.

To calculate a price for a body of work, first prepare a plan that spells out:

  • Tasks: what exactly will be done.
  • Personnel: who, with what skills and experience, will do what.
  • Time: how long it will take assigned persons to complete their tasks.
  • Cost: the number of hours for each assigned person multiplied by their billing rate and summed.

When the service provider presents the work-plan and the price to the prospective buyer, haggling  often ensues. The result is usually frustrating for both parties with the provider getting a lower price for the same work effort and the prospect feeling gouged.

The prospect wants the work at a price they can afford and the contractor wants a fair price given what it will take to perform the work. The problem is that both parties experience tension from their own frame of reference, and try too hard to close the deal in one step. Fortunately, there is a straightforward process to slow things down and, if followed to-a-tee, markedly increase the odds of a smooth progression to a signed contract.

Start with the list of the tasks required to accomplish a prospective client’s specific objective. Then follow these three steps precisely to maximize the chance of landing a project to perform the work at target rates:

  • STEP 1 – Agree on the tasks to be completed: Arrange a time to sit down with the prospective client to review: their objective, the value of achieving it, and each task required to secure it. Discuss each task thoroughly and without regard to who will perform the work and without any mention of billing rates or price. The focus at this point is entirely on what must be done to achieve the desired result and the enormous value of so doing. Get your prospect to add/change/delete tasks so that they develop a genuine sense of ownership of the taskplan.
  • STEP 2 – Agree on who will perform each task: Once the task-plan is agreed to, review the resources required to perform each task to completion with excellence and how long it will take a qualified person to perform them. Point out that less qualified people will take longer and not do as good a job but will be less expensive per hour. Do not dwell on rates or price at this point in the process. Only once the allocation of resources and durations are agreed to is it time to proceed to step three.
  • STEP 3 – Compute the price: Share  a schedule of hourly billing rates for the selected resources. Note billing rates for each person should be supported by evidence that other customers have paid the rates quoted for similar work by the same person. Multiply the hours required for each person to perform their assigned tasks by their billing rate and sum the result to compute the total price of performing the complete set of tasks.

    If the client balks at the overall price, revisit steps 1 and 2. See if there are any tasks that can be revised or resources that can be adjusted to reduce the scope and total cost, rather than just lowering your rates. Consider offering a one-time credit, but avoid permanently reducing your standard billing rates.

    Throughout the process, keep the focus on the immense value the work will deliver to the prospect. Position the cost as a small fraction of that value.

By methodically working through these three steps, you can build a strong, mutually-agreed upon foundation for the engagement – maximizing the chances of a successful sale at your target rates.

Prepare a separate exhibit for each step and go through them one at a time incorporating the edits from the preceding steps right then and there in the meeting. If the edits are too extensive, stop the process and go back to the office, make changes to what has been covered, and arrange another time to meet again to complete the three steps.

Throughout the process make sure it is clear to the prospect that  there is great value to the output of the planned work effort. Express the value in the form of a specific dollar figure. Get the prospect to share their perception of value before discussing the work plan so it will be easy to point out in step three that the cost of doing the work is but a fraction of the value.

Focus, Job Search, Manage to Lead, People Matters

How to Increase the Odds of Leading a Fulfilled Life

Work can provide deep satisfaction and contribute to a fulfilled life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes “flow” as a state of absorption in an activity that challenges our abilities. We may experience it when our minds or bodies are stretched in pursuit of something difficult and worthwhile.

But satisfaction in one pursuit does not necessarily add up to a fulfilled life. That depends also on what else receives time and attention.

My longtime executive coach, Dr. Dory Hollander, author of The Doom Loop System, offered advice that has stayed with me: “Act intentionally. Persist variously.” I understood her point to be about choosing what to work on and sustaining meaningful pursuits across the different dimensions of a life.

When in a state of such exertion and accomplishment, there is a sense of pride and fulfillment that is both pleasurable and addictive.  Some who experience flow when climbing mountains scale a peak only to start preparing to climb the next even before leaving the summit and are doomed to repeat the experience over and over in a never-ending quest to bag the ultimate peak.

Many find something similar in their work lives when they lose themselves in a strong-minded pursuit of one single, all-consuming work goal after another, much like the mountain climber in search of the perfect peak.

A consuming pursuit can make decisions about time seem simple: whenever competing demands arise, the main quest wins. That may be appropriate for a season: a period when particular circumstances, responsibilities, or opportunities warrant concentrated attention. A season might last weeks, months, or years, such as while completing a major project, raising young children, caring for a parent, or recovering from illness. Financial necessity, family responsibilities, or an important opportunity can warrant concentrated effort.

The risk comes when that priority becomes automatic. Success in one area may come at an unexamined cost to relationships, health, or other interests. We can become accomplished without having chosen the life our accomplishments produce.

Work deserves a place in a fulfilled life. So do the other people and pursuits that matter to us. The question is which deserve our attention now, and which need enough care to remain healthy while our main effort goes elsewhere.

A more enlightened approach is to view work and work goals as important, but only as one dimension of a multifaceted life.  Those who climb mountains, for example, might always look forward to the next climb but also have goals and aspirations along other lines including family, school, civic, social, sports, and so on.

A Life Wheel offers a way to see the different dimensions of life together: work, family, friendships, health, community, learning, recreation, and whatever else matters to you. Think of these as a portfolio of pursuits whose relative importance changes over time.

The aim is not to give every dimension equal time. It is to choose where to concentrate your effort while giving the others the care they need. A demanding season at work need not mean abandoning health or relationships. It does mean making deliberate choices about what you can sustain.

Some pursuits benefit from goals and milestones. Others call for presence, care, curiosity, or simple enjoyment. A fulfilled life has room for both accomplishment and experiences that need no measurable result.

To put this into practice:

  • Identify the people and pursuits that matter to you.
  • Choose one or two pursuits for concentrated effort in the current season.
  • Decide what progress or meaningful participation would look like in each.
  • Identify the time, skills, resources, and support you need.
  • Give other important dimensions enough attention to sustain them.
  • Review your choices periodically. Shift emphasis as circumstances, interests, and responsibilities change.

Dory’s advice captures the practice in four words:

“Act intentionally. Persist variously.”
— Dr. Dory Hollander, as she shared it with me

Choose what deserves your effort. Pursue it with commitment. Over time, give different dimensions of your life their turn at the center of your attention.