The Job Interview

Basic Business Cents

The purpose of a job interview is to see if there is a fit between the job applicant and the open position, plain and simple. The applicant wants a job and the employer wants to fill an opening. Both parties share the responsibility to make this determination. Both parties should avoid putting the other in a corner, intimidating them, or monopolizing the conversation. A good interview will result in a mutual decision to the satisfaction of both.

It goes without saying that both parties need to do their homework. The applicant can go to the employer’s website and learn about them. They can query their network for both tangible and intangible information. This will help them develop their set of clarifying questions like:

·      What are the key traits desired for someone in this position

·      What would a typical day look like

·      How much responsibility does this position have

·      What are the objectives that management has for someone in this position

·      What are the challenges to be expected

·      What training will be provided

·      What are the growth opportunities

o   For the company

o   For the person in the position

The employer also needs to do homework by preparing a script of questions and ask the same questions of all applicants. In this way, the applicants can be compared objectively. A typical set of questions includes:

·      What type of work do you enjoy doing

·      What provides satisfaction from your work

·      What is the ideal position for you

·      What have you accomplished that you are most proud of

o   As part of a team

o   As a leader

o   As an individual contributor

·      What would you like to be doing at the peak of your career

o   Will this position be a step in getting there

o   What training or experience will help you achieve your goal

There should be an equal number of questions from both parties and an equal amount of time spent talking by each.

There are some questions the employer is NOT allowed to ask as determined by the federal and state Departments of Labor such as:

·      Do you have an arrest record

·      What does your spouse do

·      Tell me about your personal attributes like height and weight

·      What is your ethnic background, race, or religion

·      What is your health history or do you have any physical impairments

·      Have you had any addiction habits with drugs or alcohol

·      Have you had any mental health problems

Both parties need to remember that the interview is a collaborative effort to see if there is a fit. The decision to hire should mean that the position is a fit for the applicant to advance toward his/her long-term goal and to provide pride, satisfaction, and happiness along the way. The fit for the company is that the applicant will more than fulfill the present needs and add to the talent and capability in the company for the future.

If both parties reach the decision that they have a fit, then a good decision can be made to the mutual satisfaction of everyone.

Making Change Happen

Basic Business Cents

Leadership likes to believe it can effect change in its organization at its will but it is easier said than done. Inertia and culture can be tremendous obstacles to change. Lip service may be paid to edicts to change but the work keeps on being done the same way with the same results. People are comfortable doing it the same way it has always been done.

A useful formula to remember in making change happen is D x V x F > R, meaning Dissatisfaction times Vision times First steps is greater than Resistance.

Nothing much will happen in the operation to change if the people are not satisfied with the present results (Dissatisfaction). It may be a simple process, it may be a larger system, or it may be the entire organization that is sub-optimizing the operation. When consensus is reached that status quo is not good enough and something needs to be done to improve, then the stage is set for change. You may want to take advantage of new technology, new method, or increased training.

The Vision is the view of the future that portrays what the organization will be like if the changes are made. It has to be communicated and explained to the satisfaction of all involved so that they become aligned with the direction and buy in to the concept. Employees need to understand the value to the organization and to them and become enthusiastic supporters.

First steps are important because everyone is watching to see if this change will work. False steps can stop or delay the new way.  Lorne Ames, President of International Nickel Company/Manitoba said, “What is important is baby steps, not giant strides.”

A good idea is to follow the PDSA cycle. First, Plan what action is to be taken.  Then, Do it on a small or trial basis. Next, Study, observe, and check results to see if the trial effort provides desired results. If so, Act and roll it out full scale. Then continue around the cycle and Plan further change, Do it, Study results, and Act accordingly. Continual improvement is obtained by continuing to roll around this cycle.

Resistance is met at every step along the way. As mentioned earlier, “We have always done it this way”, comfort in the old way, inertia, lip service, and some not convinced of the value of the new way are forms of resistance. Communication is key; people are not opposed to change, they are opposed to being changed. Communication has two parts, sending and receiving. It is not enough to tell people, they must understand. It is helpful to understanding if more than one of the senses is employed. Management can provide written documents so the employees have time to study the message (seeing), tell them orally (hearing), and discussing with others (getting a sense of feeling). Different people learn in different ways.

With acceptance of Dissatisfaction, buy-in to Vision, desired results are obtained with First steps, Resistance will be overcome. The change becomes “our change” and not “their change”.

What is Organizational Culture?

Basic Business Cents

"Culture eats strategic plans for lunch every time!"å Bill Rupp, MD & CEO, Luther Midelfort, Mayo Health System

What is this thing called organizational cultural and why is it important to you? Good question; one that we all know is critical to success of an organization but is difficult to describe and influence.

Webster describes culture as, “(a) development, improvement or refinement of the intellect, emotions, interests, manners, and taste, (b) the result of this: refined ways of thinking, talking, and acting.” Organization is defined as “a body of persons organized for some specific purpose”. Not a lot of help so far but let us explore further.

We want a group of dedicated employees working together for the common good of the system or organization. Sounds good but can it be created or modified?

Like it or not, all organizations have an organizational culture. It may be as desired but it may not. Some organizations are a collection of fiefdoms with departments competing with each other for recognition, funds, and assignments. Individuals may be competing with each other for promotions, salary increases, bonuses, recognition, offices, and assignments. Even top executives may be competing with the record of the previous top executive.

This competition and jockeying for position can lead to hoarding of information, which prevents others from doing their job as needed. It can lead to back-biting, sub-optimizing of the processes and systems, and demoralization.

What we want and need is a team working together to achieve the best possible result. We want the workforce to have pride in their work, enjoy their workdays, always strive to learn and improve, pleasant with each other, customers and suppliers, and focused on achieving the Aim of the organization.

Experience has shown the teaching of tools and methods will not endure unless there is a sustaining improvement culture of the organization that is developed and nurtured. To do this, we:

1. Align employees to the Aim and Strategy of the organization. It needs to be communicated to all employees, teams identified to lead efforts on the strategic initiatives, measured, and progress communicated monthly.
2. Guide behavior within the organization. Develop a standard of desired behavioral guidelines and communicate to all employees, and again monitor progress on a regular basis. Semi-annual surveys of employees can be conducted to provide an opportunity to report on observations on behavior consistent with the guidelines.
3. Build continuous improvement competency in all employees. Providing training on process improvement, employ data based analysis and decision making, and lead by example. Emphasize process and not people; in other words, fix the problems and not the blame.
4. Provide opportunities for intrinsic motivation. Effective motivation has to come from within the individual; extrinsic motivation attempts are rarely helpful and may even backfire. Especially beware of financial rewards. Enable the employees by providing education and training to allow them to learn and grow. Empower the employees by delegating authority to improve work processes. Allow the workers more of a sense of satisfaction in their work by knowing they are improving the way they do things. And, don’t forget to communicate and celebrate success.
5. Manage must model the way! The above will accomplish nothing if employees observe management with contrary behavior.

Dr. Rupp was right, culture can be a powerful negative force but it can also be a tremendous force for the success of the organization. As with anything else in the organization, it must be developed, improved, and nurtured.

Getting the Workforce to Work Together

Basic Business Cents

Nothing is as destructive to an organization as employees working at self-interests. We are taught that everyone is doing their best but that best might not be for the good of the system. They want to do the best for the organization but dissention and competition within the workforce can cause them to focus efforts on themselves. A collaborative workforce is much more productive than a collection of individuals that may be working at cross-purposes. This is where leadership differentiates itself from management.

Leaders first establish a vision of the desired future of the organization. This vision needs to be memorable, inspirational, and compelling. Then the people need to be involved in the definition of the strategic steps needed to achieve the vision. If they are involved, they will have ownership; it will bind the workforce together in the pursuit of that vision.

In order to build teamwork and esprit-de-corps, leaders need to:

·      Model the behavior that they desire because the workers are always watching and they will emulate behavior.

·      Understand the needs and interests of the workforce and help them satisfy those needs.

·      Think long-term and act for the betterment of the entire system.

·      Communicate progress on the achievement of the strategic actions on a regular basis to keep interest, enthusiasm, and positive thinking on the effort.

·      Lead, not dictate. Neither should they abdicate responsibility.

Everyone needs to work on establishing cooperative relationships but it starts with the leader. Competition within the workforce can be very destructive; it promotes win-lose situations. What are desired are win-win activities and results. All need to remind themselves of fixing the problem and not the blame. They need to develop a mutual trust and respect for each other. They need to exchange ideas and help each other. One-on-one meetings often can solve misunderstandings. Leaders can initiate the improvement in relationships within the workforce by replacing individual rewards with rewards for everyone. They can empower and enable others to act and invent options for mutual gain.

Lastly, leaders need to nurture self-esteem of the workers by promoting the understanding that everyone is important. Positive reinforcement should be used often and sincerely.

The workforce should have an input in planning and creating new ideas. People should be given important work and then discretion in getting it done. Micromanaging or constantly looking over workers shoulders inhibits creativity and slows down the work. Visibility should be given on progress and results. Leaders and workers alike need to remember Stephen Covey’s advice that if we want to be trusted, we need to be trustworthy. We must also trust others, and remember they are always watching our behavior.

By involving the workforce in the planning and getting their buy-in to achieve the organization’s goals, developing cooperative behavior throughout the organization, and elevating the self-esteem of the workforce, the old adage the whole is greater than the sum of the parts can be proved in your organization.

Life Balance

Basic Business Cents

We are accustomed to taking inventory of our stock at work and looking at our bank balance, but do we an audit of our life, as we should? We tend to get stuck in routines and focus on the urgent activities at the moment and not what is important long term. An audit of the balance in our lives can be divided into three categories-satisfaction, provisioning, and growth.

Do we have pride in both what we are doing in our work life as well as our home life? Do we achieve a sense of accomplishment in both? Are we achieving recognition for our accomplishments for our selves and our family members? Are we happy and finding enjoyment? Your life should be so exciting that you cannot wait to get to work in the morning and cannot wait to get home in the evening.

Do we experience fear or anxiety at work or at home? Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to differentiate between fear and anxiety; he said fear is caused by external factors for which we have no control, like war, weather phenomena, and fire. He said people cause anxiety; and we may be able to do something about that.

Most of us need to work to provide income for living needs and for our retirement; but there are other elements of provisioning. We need to provide love and respect for our family members, co-workers, neighbors, and fellow citizens. We need to contribute to our community and to various organizations of which we belong. A good idea is to identify long-term goals for our life. The average life expectancy in the United States today is about 79 years, which gives us about 50 years to achieve what we desire to become at the peak of our work life and personal achievement. We need to ask ourselves in this assessment if we are on the road to our ultimate aim, and if not, get back on the right track to make it happen in the needed timeframe.

The third category of life balance is growth. Are we learning at the rate needed to reach our aim in life, both formal and informal? Are we getting the needed experience? Are there other parts of our aim to consider like spiritual growth, personal development, family achievements, and a list of sights and experiences to consider?

When interviewing job applicants, it is a good idea to ask them what their long-term goal is in life. If the current position does not help them get to their goal, don’t hire them. They will only end up being unhappy and less than desired employees. Plus, you will have done them a service to think about what they really want in their next position.

It is necessary to discuss your aim with your spouse or significant other to ensure that you have the same goal. You may find that by this discussion that you have to rethink your aim to make sure that you really do have balance between your career and family. Changes may be required in your aim, or in your action. The real value in the assessment of your work and family lives is the thought process of determining what you really want and need, and then getting on the path to achieve it.

What is Marketing, Anyway?

Basic Business Cents

The dictionary defines marketing as the action or business of promoting and selling products or services. Too many people believe that if they design a better mousetrap or put up a web site, customers will beat down their door for the honor of obtaining their product or service. It isn’t usually that way in the real world. It is necessary to market the product or service in a way to entice the customer to buy.

There are many components of marketing and the judicial use of which to use, when, and where are critical to long-term success.

Market Research gathers information about customers’ needs and preferences, which are not always the same. Sometimes the customers do not really understand what their true needs are and good market research may have to dig deep enough to discover it. The customer’s goal is to be very pleased with the benefits of doing business with you and you have to ensure that your product or service fits that need or preference. Market research should find the best way to reach that customer to make the sale.

Sales are the actual actions of exchanging your commodity for money. It can be in a store, face-to-face at the customer’s site, direct mail, on the Internet, at a convention, or on the telephone. Until you make that sale, you have no income to finance your activities. Sales professionals are fond of saying that nothing starts until a sale is made.

Promotion is defined as the publication of a product, service, or organization to increase sales and public awareness. It can take the form of advertising in various forms of media, radio, television, newspapers, magazines, trade papers, public spaces, vehicles, billboards, etc. The first rule of thumb in advertising, as in all other promotional vehicles, is to speak of benefits to the user and not of features of the product or service. This is difficult for inventors and engineers as they are in love with their product or service. Press Releases can be useful as an alternative or supplement to advertising and it is free, but it must be truly newsworthy or the media will not use it. Word-of-Mouth from delighted customers is the best form of promotion but it has to be earned. Electronic Word-of-Mouth is emerging as important and is facilitated through various social media forms. It can be expedited by placement of promotional pieces on selected outlets. Direct Mail is an avenue to reach customers, which can either be my postal services or electronic.  Build and use your Network; it may be your most important asset.

Collateral is the printed form of customer benefits of your product or service. It can by flyers distributed by mail, display rack cards, brochures, catalogs, hand-outs, manuals, books, and other material supporting the promotion of your products or services. Testimonials, especially unsolicited testimonials, and case studies are very useful as prospective buyers look for references.

Not to be forgotten, After-Sales Activities are a very important element of marketing. Service and follow-up to ensure satisfaction, or better yet delight, with the product or service by the customers are critical.

Good market research and a market plan will reveal which of these activities best fit your product, service, target market, capabilities, and abilities to produce. The Market Plan will detail not only which, but when and where to use these activities.

Developing Your Marketing Strategy

Basic Business Cents

A fundamental question for any business is, “Do you sell what you can make or do you make what you can sell?” The answer might surprise you unless you carefully develop a marketing strategy. The first step is to conduct some market research.

Study the demographics of who will use your output, consumers, resellers, age group, industry, etc. How large is the market, is it growing or declining, location of buyers, purchasing habits, and best sales channels are questions to explore. What is your appeal to this market?

The next step is to identify your target market. From my experience, if you say your market is so large that if you only get 1% of the market you can become rich, you will likely get lost in the crowd and not succeed. But if you narrow the niche or segment of the market to not only become a major player in that niche, but to dominate it, then you have a good chance to be successful. Consider how well your product/service fills unmet needs or wants, how well the niche fits your business vision and skills, cost of entry into that business, and competitive positions. This is really defining a favorable opportunity.

Now that you have identified your target niche, do an analysis of the competition you expect to face in that segment of the market. Develop a worksheet listing the competitors, their strengths and weaknesses, pricing strategy, benefits and features, reputation, sales channels, image, and financial strength.

With your market research, study of the prospective buyers, and competitors, you can develop your pricing strategy. Do your benefits outweigh that of the competition so that you can demand pricing at the top of the scale? Do your costs of production and delivery provide the opportunity to sell on lower price? Selling at the low end of pricing is usually a bad choice that can lead to price wars. You need to identify an area where you will have an advantage, maybe even an unfair advantage. Bundling of products, service benefits, application knowledge, location, features, and benefits, benefits, benefits…..can support higher pricing. Look at your pricing from your customers’ eyes and justify the value of your products/services. Make sure that your pricing provides adequate income for your business

Your marketing message should always speak in terms of benefits to your marketing segment customers/users. It is natural for us to fall in love with our products and tend to brag about them in our marketing messages but remember, the customers do not care about that; they only care about what that product can do for them. Always speak in customer language.

In marketing, there is value in repetition, so develop a short marketing message or brand that you use constantly to enforce the message of the essence of your business. Your collateral, advertising, logo, and signage should repeat this brand. As time goes on, you may wish to rebrand your business as conditions change, but remember the consistency of the image you wish to project.

A 12-month marketing plan should be developed and incorporated into the organization’s business plan. Begin by identifying the goals of the marketing plan such as to increase the awareness of your business among prospective customers, attract more customers to buy, and increase customer satisfaction and thereby increase more referrals. Develop a chart by month for the next year with tasks, roles/responsibilities, completion time, materials, social media activities, alliances, email marketing, conferences/trade shows, target media contact list, tools/resources, and budget. This plan should be reviewed monthly and fine-tuned with new information learned.

The budget should identify target customers and sales channels to reach them. It should also include one-time charges, monthly expenses, and staff time.

A summary of the marketing activities can be shown in a marketing calendar to serve as a reminder of what is required at which time. It should be reviewed monthly for learning of the value of each and adjustments made accordingly.

Your image and service need to be appraised constantly. Is your facility neat, orderly, and appealing? Are you and your employees knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful? Is your website easy to navigate with a clear call to action? How well do you handle customer inquiries and complaints?

The question stated earlier on whether you should sell what you can make or produce what you can sell cannot be answered simply if you want to optimize your success. It is an iterative process to be studied carefully and strategized for best results.

Like anything else in business, your marketing strategy needs to be current, which means regular review and making corrections as needed. It is a key guide in attaining success.

Reference:  SCORE Marketing Cookbook

Simple Recipes for Marketing Success