Make a Decision!

If you sometimes wonder why management makes the “big bucks”, one reason is that they have the responsibility for setting direction and making decisions on behalf of the company. Some decisions are no-brainers and can be made on the run. Others require significant research, analysis, legal review, and approval from executive management. Fallout from just one really bad decision can ruin a career. That’s why some managers get so bound up in the process that they postpone important decisions that affect their ability to meet strategic goals.

On the surface, decision-making seems pretty simple. Just make a list of Pros and Cons, look at the results, make a choice, and move on. But what do you do when your options seem equally good (or bad), and it’s time to pick a direction?

WEIGH THE PROS & CONS: You may have 10 things on the Pros side, and 10 things on the Cons side, but they are not all equal. Assign each item a “weight” based on importance and impact. Add up each side again, using the weight number and see how the chips fall.

EXAMINE YOUR GUT: You must not base important decisions solely based on a gut feeling, but you can take your intuition into account as a factor. Think about why you feel the way you do and qualify that feeling into something to add to your weighted Pros and Cons list.

GATHER INPUT: You’ve already brainstormed with your own team – now approach trusted colleagues or mentors for their opinions. Other perspective and experience may add new light to the subject.

PREPARE A BACKUP PLAN: Whichever choice you consider, be sure to play out some risk scenarios on paper, in case you have to change direction. If legal agreements are required, include protection to cover your worst nightmares (e.g. the vendor you have chosen to work with goes out of business).

ACCEPT THAT THERE MAY BE NO “BEST” CHOICE: Someday you will have to choose between two equally good options. Don’t let that delay your choice too much. If you can live with either choice – make the decision, feel good about it, and move on. In business, keeping momentum has its own value.

DO WHAT YOU CAN LIVE WITH: You may worry about whether you are making the best choice for the long run. It may be a long time before you know for certain how it turns out. But if you’ve done your analysis and made a decision based on facts and logical reasoning, you should be willing and able to defend your actions if challenged. (“I went with my gut” will not be an effective defense.)

Now, suck it up and be a real leader. Make a decision!

Still Exploring

Today marks two years of weekly blog posts by Haropulos Bailey Consulting. We began this journey as a means to introduce business people to who we are and how we think. It’s also our mission to share some of the professional experience we have gained over almost 30 years in a corporate environment.

Our sincere thanks are offered to the readers we have attracted over the last two years, from all around the world. I should also thank Google and other search engine companies that send people our way. The feedback and statistics we collect help us hone our subject matter, based on your interest. We can only hope we have helped you or touched you in some way.

Future blog posts will continue along the same vein, until someday we run out of ideas (my recurring nightmare on Sunday nights). We are inspired by conversations with friends and former colleagues, current events, activity in social media, and memories of good and bad corporate experiences of days gone by. Suggestions for subjects are always gratefully welcomed, and we are still exploring hot topics that may be of interest to you.

Think of our Haropulos Bailey Consulting Blog as a little bit of free mentoring and consulting, offered in the spirit of “Creative Practical Collaboration”. You are invited to contact us by posting comments to the blog or by emailing us at habaconsulting@comcast.net.

Onward into Year 3!

Dear Mr Trump

Every time I turn around, I see Donald Trump - on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, various talk shows, commercials, and products.  In Wikipedia, he is defined as an "American business magnate, socialite, author, and television personality".  Some think he should be our next President.  Well, I have a few constructive suggestions for "The Donald".

Dear Mr Trump,

I watch your show, Celebrity Apprentice, with guilty pleasure. It’s interesting to hear the weekly challenges, wear my business hat to consider how I would approach them, and watch the celebrities compete to varying degrees of success. But the show would be more enjoyable, and even educational, with less petty drama and more insight into innovative business practices. It’s disheartening to watch your contestants fight, whine, backstab, and finagle their way to avoid being fired. You have completely ignored an opportunity to inspire people to be successful in business, and predictably sell out instead.  Thank you for raising money for charities; but the show isn’t as much about that worthwhile goal as it is focused on lucrative product placement and low-brow amusement. I suppose it works for you and the network, and is very popular, but it does not stir my admiration.

You have publicly stated on numerous occasions that “Trump” is the greatest brand in the world. Just saying it does not make it true. You dilute the power of your brand by putting it on everything from offices, condos and hotels to menswear, lighting fixtures to fragrances, vodka to steaks, bottled water to furniture, and golf courses to a university. Overexposure and over-diversification has bloated your brand image and has it teetering on the edge of the ridiculous.

Now your sites are set on a candidacy for the 2012 Presidential election. I don't see how you will be able to reconcile your numerous financial failures (i.e. bankruptcies and the forced sale of several major businesses) with the possibility of having the responsibility for decisions critical to our national budget. Are you trustworthy to hold those purse strings? In the business world, I understand that some risk is necessary to gather great financial reward. But if the security of 300 million Americans were in your hands, we would expect a more conservative long-term approach to decision-making.

Frankly, Mr. Trump, you need a brand makeover. I recommend:

• Focus your products and enterprises around a clear set of brand values to which a specific segment of the public can aspire.
• Eliminate the “noise” that dilutes your brand, including products that don’t fit with your brand values.
• Re-work the formula for "The Apprentice" to focus more on real business acumen.  If you don't want to give up the current version, create another one for CNBC.  It would be a great promotional vehicle for Trump University.
• Your brand revolves around your personal image.  If you are going to stay relevant, you must get rid of your contrived comb-over for a modern, age-appropriate hairstyle, and shed about 40 pounds to look more energetic.
• Try being a little more humble and a little less pompous.

I hope you understand that my comments are not personal. As you say on your show, “It’s just business”.

Sincerely,

Laurel Haropulos Bailey
Management Consultant

Business is Business

My business experience was logged almost exclusively in the corporate world. I donned “business attire” Monday through Friday to wrestle with office politics, airline travel, expense accounts, the fine points of human resource and career management, and fought through the unwieldy process for approval of annual budgets - all of which occurred in a climate-controlled environment.

Last week I brushed shoulders with scores of experienced professionals engaged in a completely different kind of business – AGRICULTURAL FARMING. A group of about 80 people, including me and Ron, attended an auction of 60 acres of farm land in Paxton (a small town in central Illinois). Among the others present were independent farmers, land brokers, bankers, and investors. The level of interest in the room was palpable, and became even more evident once the auction began. A flurry of bidding quickly went from $5,100 per acre to a final sale price of $7,450 per acre. The buyers, a local family, were congratulated with handshakes and claps on the back. To seal the deal, they wrote out a check for 10% of the total purchase price of $447,000. It was all over within 15 minutes!

It would be a mistake to misjudge the sophistication level of the auction attendees by their favored fashion - jeans, overalls, fleece, and ball caps. Farming is big, big business that requires skill and experience, and should not be characterized as merely “sowing and reaping”. Calculations are used to determine the optimum planting depth for seeds, and timing for fertilization, weed, and pest control, based on history and conditions. During critical periods, farmers work 24 hours a day to plant, cultivate, and harvest their crops, with the help of expensive specialized equipment. Paperwork is required to secure valued government subsidies and to satisfy the IRS. Farmers use the futures market to hedge against falling prices, and keep a keen eye on the commodities market to pick the best time to sell their harvested crops. All field work is accomplished at the mercy of Mother Nature, who adds a sadistic variable to the mix in the form of rain, snow, wind, drought, pestilence, and blazing or freezing temperatures.

Farming’s effect on the overall economy is broad. Here are just a few examples...  Banks provide the credit required to purchase equipment and carry mortgages. Brokers package land sales and promote them, earning their percentage. Insurance companies sell crop insurance. Large corporations invest in land farmed for profit. Grain companies haul crops and provide storage in grain elevators. Genetic plant research drives improvements in seed and fertilizers that maximize production and yield per acre. The equipment needed to prepare the soil, plant, and harvest sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars – or is made available to lease. Financial analysts track earnings of Caterpillar and John Deere, as an indicator for commodities futures.

The global business environment is complex and fascinating. The most savvy business people strive to have a broad view of how the pieces fit together and affect the worldwide economy. Business is business. Be very aware that what you do is part of a much bigger picture.

Don't Take Your Employees for Granted

It’s been a stressful and scary time out in the professional world, and senior management has had the upper hand over their staffs for the past few years. Some unethical people in power have taken despicable advantage of employees fearful about job security - demanding more productivity and longer hours without additional compensation. “You are lucky to have this job”, is the thinly veiled message from the dude with the cattle prod at your back.

Many corporations have been managing through bad times. There has been serious pressure from low business levels, plunging profits, the need to cut expenses, and noise from unhappy shareholders. If this reality is properly communicated to employees in the form of actions necessary to keep the organization financially viable (and jobs on the payroll), most workers will rally and paddle in tandem with management to weather the storm. They don’t need to be threatened or abused, and they mustn’t be taken for granted.

Better days are coming, slowly but surely. Imagine what will happen as the tumultuous tides recede and your employees have a chance to contemplate their hard-won survival…

• There will be resentful people that will hold a grudge for how they were treated during bad times. The next perceived loss suffered at the hand of the corporation may be the last straw. (Remember the guy in the movie Office Space who set fire to the place because they took his stapler away from him?)

• Some talented individuals have been tolerating abuse just until the job market opens up, and they have an opportunity to go somewhere they will be appreciated and well compensated. That’s the bitch about taking advantage of the passing fears of your employees.

• Training and development of employees is widely abandoned when funding is scarce. If you lose critical resources you have been relying on, do you have anyone prepared to step up to the plate and complete critical projects in progress?

Take a good look around at your team. Are they listless, exhausted, and shell-shocked? Do they show signs of being disengaged, unmotivated, or even angry? You’d better be talking with them, thanking them sincerely and repeatedly for their efforts, supporting them through this recovery period, and helping plan their career development. If you take them for granted much longer, they may just be ready to move on. Opportunity is burgeoning in 2011.

Your Professional Tagline

When we wrote Guiding Principles for Haropulos Bailey Consulting, it seemed natural to also develop a tagline as part of our brand identity. We chose “Creative, Practical Collaboration” as a shorthand way to communicate what we have to offer our clients.

Here’s your task: If you were to add a tagline to your resume, what would it be? Boiling down your best attributes into three words, which words do you feel would be most representative of your characteristics? You have inherent strengths to market to an employer. With what words can you best reflect values important to you? Can just three words effectively express your professional essence?

The value of this task is for you to revisit your resume and ensure that the content of the tagline you develop is included in your resume or cover letter. I don’t mean to literally feature your three-word tagline! But it’s vital for you to communicate those attributes that reflect your strengths and values as part of your professional profile. Your best match with a company will be with an organization and hiring manager that has complementary views; one that values similar characteristics.

Here are a few descriptive words to get you thinking. Please share your new tagline with us as a comment to this posting, and help inspire others.

Business Processes vs. Technology

I was around in the early 1980’s, the olden-days when computers were introduced to the desktops of corporate workers. My memory of the immediate and dramatic boost in our productivity is still clear. Instead of writing functional specifications for system design on yellow legal pads and walking them over to the word processing department (an iterative process until the document was finalized), we could digitize our specifications ourselves – literally saving days at a time. I also remember when we first got email in our office! This was a time when the introduction of almost any technology rocked our world and changed all of our business processes for the better.

Thirty years later, the cycles for introduction of new technology are so quick that Best Buy now has a “buy back” program to protect consumers afraid to buy something today that will be outdated tomorrow. At its worst, American society is an embarrassing collection of gadget freaks, blithely strewing capital into the marketplace to acquire the latest and greatest voice-activated-touch-screen- application-rich-LED-bright-mind-numbing-mesmerizing collection of microchips and memory to come on the market.

Don’t get me wrong – I love technology. Specifically, I love TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS; or the best tool for a purpose. If the purpose is strictly entertainment – that’s cool. But if the goal is to more efficiently conduct business – that’s another thing entirely. Before spending beaucoup bucks on the coolest new technology, someone (I hope) is going to want to understand the business case behind the purchase.

Management should be relentlessly exploring possibilities for optimizing their business processes. Often, improvement can be achieved without requiring changes to technology. But when a great new technology comes along, it’s a good time to think creatively about processes and determine whether they could be streamlined in a measurable way by applying innovation and new tools.

Purchases of new technology solutions should be subjected to a cost/benefit analysis. Think and plan first – then buy. Why, exactly, do your employees NEED to discard their Blackberries in favor of iPhones? What legitimate business will they conduct using an iPhone that they couldn’t do with their Blackberry? Do your executives truly need a smart phone, an iPad, a laptop/netbook computer, AND a desktop computer? Shouldn’t it be more about the software than the hardware sometimes?

Next time you plan to purchase expensive new technology, challenge yourself to deliver a lasting improvement to business processes as part of your implementation.