3. The CEO must develop a comprehensive development plan for his or her potential successors. Planning the successor’s personal development is an integral part of the succession planning process and the board must link these plans to clear criteria of what the next CEO will require. Additionally, the personal development plans and personal performance plans should be inextricably coupled.
4. Make sure the plan includes a response to an immediate need to replace the CEO. Lessons have been learned from the unfortunate and unexpected deaths of Jerry R. Junkins of Texas Instruments in 1996, Jim Cantalupo of McDonald’s in 2004, and Charlie Bell of McDonald’s in 2005. In both corporations, the next CEO had already been selected and was in the process of being groomed for the CEO position. In both corporations, several candidates were available so that the boards had selection options. These companies had boards who knew how to plan for calamity.

Most succession planning processes are quiet, orderly affairs in which the board goes about developing an appropriate cadre of candidates and then focuses on the few individuals most likely to reach the stage of being groomed for the CEO’s position. However, some firms stage a competition to identify the best candidate in the field. This usually requires informing the competitors that they have been selected as candidates for the position.

Despite a CEO’s enthusiasm for—or avoidance of—the task of choosing his or her future successor, corporate boards must resolutely and methodically do the work of ensuring that the company will have an effective leader at all times. This requires planning for the CEO’s succession, and it even requires making a plan that delineates the decisions that must be made to complete that plan. The board also bears responsibility for making sure that the company will have a full complement of possible CEO replacements, senior executives, and directors. Active planning and oversight on the part of the board are needed to make sure that all responsible parties in the company are doing their part to develop senior executives and plan for their succession. Personal leadership excellence will be the key to their success.

(Reproduced with permission of author Curtis J. Crawford, Ph.D.)

Why Decision Speed Determines Product Success
Decision speed is the time it takes your customers to go from initial awareness to enthusiastic full use and recommendation of your product or service. This in turn is governed by the simplicity, ease, and sometimes the fun of the decision process.

Obviously, the company that makes its products easier to decide on will acquire customers faster and increase market share faster. But increased decision speed causes much larger changes in market share than might be obvious. In fact, it’s the key to dominating your market.

Accelerated decisions are in a different class from other marketing program adjustments. While most marketing changes—at best—provide incremental market share increases (typically 10 to 30%), faster decision cycles can improve market share by orders of magnitude (10 to 100 times).

Come back next week to understand Why Speed Equals Multiplied Sales
(Reproduced with permission of author George Silverman)

Welcome to episode 7 of Canadian Management Centre’s Podcast Series Business Intelligence, this weeks host is John Eckmire. The notion of ‘partnership’ is the key to understanding how to build a culture of success within any organization. John Eckmire speaks to Dr. Lorraine Capuano founder of the Organization Effectiveness Group to discuss the state of leadership within today’s organizations. Dr. Capuano identifies partnership as a concept that equips leaders with an understanding of how to lead effectively.

Download here: BI# 07 - Leadership Skills for a Fast-Paced World

Running Time: 16 min 22 sec

Detailed Episode Summary:

• Partnership is defined as the ability of a leader to understand what their team requires in order to help them build a fulfilling career. Leaders must understand that all members of an organization wish to contribute to success and while they may be searching for maximum productivity other members may be searching for maximum satisfaction.

• Qualities of a good leader include the ability to point employees in the right direction, to motivate, understand strategy, and assist others in their desire to add value to their organization.

• John makes the observation that partnership and leadership is in fact the exact opposite of a command and control relationship.

• The simplest way to change a command and control style of leadership is to understand the concept of partnering with your people, know how other people view you and help others understand how it is that they fit into the organizations big picture.

• The keys to becoming a high performing organization are:
o to have employees that are aligned with the organizations strategy
o to have roles and responsibilities that are clear
o for employees to feel that they have responsibility and accountability for results
o to have groups work well cross functionally

• Dr. Capuano believes that leaders can be both born and developed. By nature some people are instinctively visionary, charismatic and motivational. Others who are not can be taught through training and development to understand the needs of people within their organization.

• Leaders have had to adjust their style of leadership due to generational diversity. A new generation of workers have entered the workforce with an entirely new work ethic.

• These people have seen their parents be systematically let go from the jobs that they devoted their lives to and thus feel less loyalty towards their employers.

• Dr. Capuano believes that organizations in general may be responsible for this shift in priority, as corporations have done the right things in the past to ensure loyalty of employees.

Key Leadership solutions:
1. Be focused and deliberate when creating organizational strategy
2. Be diligent at stopping every so often to check on your own progress
3. Get feedback from those within your organization who are required to carry out the strategy
4. Have courage to correct decisions that need to be changed

Keep in mind that people want to be listened to and want to be heard. Therefore, by encouraging feedback and open discussion you will create loyalty.

• Leaders should also attempt to communicate with their team through a variety of methods:
o One on One
o Town hall
o E-mails
o Video Presentations

Let’s start from the beginning. What are we trying to do as marketers?

Put simply, we are trying—through a variety of means—to get lots of people to buy our products—repeatedly, in large quantities and at rewarding prices. We are trying to bring our products to people in the most profitable manner possible, both for our customers and ourselves.

How do we accomplish this? It’s widely believed that there are only three ways to increase sales: increase the number of customers, increase the dollar amount each customer spends per purchase (higher prices and/or larger orders), or increase the frequency with which the customer buys. Ask virtually any marketing expert, consult the marketing books, and they will all tell you that this exhausts the possibilities.

But the most important way of increasing sales and dominating a market has never, to my knowledge, ever been written about: Increase the speed with which decisions are made. You heard it here first. Let’s take a look at this concept in detail, because decision acceleration is the most powerful way to dominate a market, and word of mouth is the most powerful way to accelerate decisions.

Amazingly, marketing success is determined more by the time it takes your customers to decide on your product than by any other single factor. Decision speed is more powerful than positioning, image, value, customer satisfaction, guarantees, or even product superiority, because focusing on it forces you to organize these factors, and many more, into the most potent combination possible.

Come back next week to understand Why Decision Speed Determines Product Success.

(Reproduced with permission of author George Silverman)

To make sure key employees do not jump ship, managers must focus on the personal relationship they have with these individuals.

Caela Farren of MasteryWorks is an expert in worker-boss relationships. A survey by MasteryWorks found that the primary factor affecting a respondent’s decision to leave the organization is not typically money or benefits, but whether or not the manager developed a trusting relationship with them.

Says Farren, “Especially during turbulent times, managers who get to know their people, respect and trust the competency of their employees, and listen continually for how employees are doing relative to their aspirations, quality of work-life and sense of career advancement will have a far greater chance of developing and retaining their key employees.”
Here are the top 10 ways managers can develop a trusting relationship with their employees:

1. Spot an employee’s unique talent or skill and coach him/her to get the very best out of that.
2. Do not micro-manage; give employees space to find their own solutions.
3. Provide important information rather than holding on to it for political reasons.
4. Listen to employees’ concerns about the progress or direction of their careers and support them in moving in that direction.
5. Know what’s important to employees in terms of both their professional and personal lives and help them design — or redesign — work and learning around that.
6. Provide frequent and specific feedback on performance and challenge employees to make contributions based on their talents.
7. Foster networking and mentoring, linking people to valuable resources inside and outside the company.
8. Negotiate work schedules, work styles, and work modes so that skilled employees can fit in and have a balanced life.
9. Run interference, remove barriers, and help employees work through organization politics.
10. Recognize and reward employees publicly for their accomplishments and give them credit with colleagues, management, and customers.

“The quality of the manager-employee relationship is a critical feature of the workplace environment for an employee,” says Farren. “Particularly during these trying times, building a relationship based on trust is the most effective way to retain your key people.”

For more information on employee engagement and retention visit Canadian Management Centre’s online resource

The Training & Development Professionals’ Tool-Kit

(Reproduced with permission of author Caela Farren)

Welcome to episode 6 of Canadian Management Centre’s Podcast Series Business Intelligence, this weeks host is John Eckmire. In this episode Mariah Dean faculty at Canadian Management Centre and an expert in strategy and leadership discusses effective meeting strategy with John. Effective meetings are essential to the success of any organization. Inefficient meetings on the other hand can seriously hamper the ability of an organization to progress or develop to where the organization needs to go.

Download here: BI #06 - Keys to Essential Meeting Strategy

Running Time: 15 min 27 sec

Detailed Episode Summary:

• Mariah notes that meetings are vital within organizations as key information can be exchanged, problems can be solved, work is completed and processes are developed.
• Mariah identified 5 key steps to optimize a meeting:
1. Ask the question to meet or not to meet? This is the decision made by the facilitator as to whether or not a meeting is warranted.
2. Define the purpose or goal of the meeting. This requires discipline, the purpose and goal of the meeting must be specific. Defining a specific purpose or goal restrains the topic of discussion and will help to keep the meeting to a timeline.
3. Create an agenda. An agenda provides organization to your meeting. This also serves as a tool to rein in off topic discussion and focus on constructive discussion.
4. Create an agreed upon format or structure for the meeting to follow. This structure must be agreed upon by the members of your management team. One such example is enforcing although not rigidly a time line to the topics on your agenda, or sequencing the agenda based on who needs to be in the room at what time.
5. DALI. Decisions, Actions, Log and Information. This is a strategy that will enable participants and the meeting facilitator to make note of important items discussed in a clear and concise manner. Keeping track of any key Decisions made during the meeting, the Actions that need to occur as a result of those decisions, as well as Logging any key information that is exchanged.

• Mariah clearly notes that the facilitator of the meeting is not solely responsible for the success of the meeting, rather everyone who participates is.
• Mariah Dean has a new book being released in March 2008 on how to run an effective meeting. This book outlines the responsibilities for the meeting facilitator as well as for the meeting participants.

About a third of employees say that their values don’t align with those of their employers, according to an April 2007 Management-Issues report on a survey conducted by Minnesota’s CO2 Partners, a leadership development firm. CO2 polled 615 employees, reporting that 44% said their values were in line with those of their employers. Decreased productivity and poor levels of employee engagement are two potential negatives associated with values misalignment, according to CO2 president Gary Cohen. “It is disconcerting that leaders are not spending more time aligning their employees’ values with those of their organization,” he commented, noting that values dissonance can breed “passive unproductive behaviours and a silent sabotage of projects and ideas.” (Management-Issues [Paton], April 5, 2007) (as reported by i4cp)

3. The campaign conveys a clear message. The company uses the sponsorship to communicate a clear and compelling message about the brand to a target excited by the sponsorship and responsive to the brand. For example, Fidelity Investments sponsored Paul McCartney’s 2005 U.S. tour. The theme of the tour: Never stop doing what you love. Fidelity’s message: Let us plan the next stage of your life. For McCartney’s predominantly baby-boomer audience who are at least thinking about—if not already in the process of— retiring, communicating that Fidelity could help them continue doing what they love, just like McCartney, resonated deeply. By the end of the tour, Fidelity had reportedly generated $100+ in new and incremental business.
4. There is clear linkage between product and sponsorship. Examples of clear connections are Yahoo! Music and XM Satellite Radio sponsoring the Grammy Awards; Beaches family resort sponsoring the Sesame Street Live tour; Michelin sponsoring Formula 1; a “clean, green” energy company sponsoring the concert tour of a musician with a well-publicized penchant for the environment. When the connection starts to become far-fetched—a fast-food company sponsoring the Olympics, for example—effectiveness decreases. If it takes longer than five seconds for you to explain the connection between a brand and an opportunity, it’s a safe bet most target buyers aren’t going to get it.

The take-away message? Before you invest heavily in sponsorship or event marketing, do the research. Stop relying on your gut and start using the facts from data and solid analysis to guide your sponsorship and event choices.

(Reproduced with permission of authors Kevin J. Clancy, Ph.D., and Peter C. Krieg)

Office politics can have a detrimental effect on workforce productivity, and HR needs to embrace its role in controlling the fallout. Common problems associated with office politics – “selfishness, greed, petty bickering, lust for power – can creep into your company’s culture and interfere with productivity,” said Joanne Sujansky, CEO of Pittsburgh-based consultancy KeyGroup, in a 2007 article in HRfocus that examined the issue. But HR is uniquely positioned both to watch for signs that office politics is ramping up and to take steps to subdue it. Some of the telltale indications of office politics are malicious gossip, workflow blockages, blame-shifting and clock-watching, said Sujansky. Rick Brandon, CEO of California-based consultancy Brandon Partners, said HR can pick up on these signals through examining turnover patterns, holding exit interviews, conducting employee surveys and generally keeping eyes and ears open. Brandon suggests asking employees direct, probing survey questions related to how office politics is affecting them and whether or not they sense a difference between what is said openly and what is said behind closed doors. Sujansky offers additional recommendations: “Get employees out of their own little cliques” via job shadowing, and encourage groups of workers from various departments to come together and share goals and support. (HRfocus, May 2007, pp. 8-9) (as reported by i4cp)

Welcome to Episode 5 of Canadian Management Centre’s Podcast series Business Intelligence. This weeks episode is hosted by the President of Canadian Management Centre Bruce Peer. This week Bruce speaks with Jody Jones President of Strategic Transformations an organization that specializes in developmental growth and strategy execution. They discuss the topic of one of Canadian Management Centre’s recent white papers The Keys to Strategy Execution

Download here: BI 05 - The Keys to Strategy Execution

Running Time: 18:31

Detailed Episode Summary:

• Jody identifies strong leadership as the single most important defining characteristic critical to business strategy execution.
• Strategic direction flows from the top down in any organization, the ability of an organizational leader to focus the efforts of their group in the direction they need to grow is crucial.
• Leaders should have the ability to focus the activities of their employees so that the results are aligned with the company’s strategic goals.
• Good leaders must have the ability to recognize their own skills, strengths and weaknesses.
• Constructing an organization that allows for honest and constructive feedback from the top down is vital.
• Honest and constructive feedback allows all people within an organization to see the kinds of issues and challenges that repeatedly occur. If individuals remain open-minded and are willing to identify patterns of behaviour, each person will become a more effective leader.
• The global market has evolved in such a way that constant change is the norm. Therefore, the ability of an organization to strategically change direction to accommodate change will ultimately make them more successful.
• Becoming more receptive to change and structuring their organization to be adaptive will ultimately benefit organizational leaders by allowing them to drive the organization to where it needs to go
• Jody identified the 3 Keys to Strategy Execution:
1. Develop a clear strategy: Execution depends on people knowing what they are trying to accomplish. In addition execution requires the ability to take a vision and articulate that vision in a direction and then into steps that people can follow to reach their goal.
2. Align process and people with strategy: Structure within organizations should follow strategy. People must be involved within an organization to move strategy forward. The culture of an organization defines its ability to execute change well.
3. Build an Agile and resilient organization: Change is a reality; today’s organizations need to be able to evolve along with the people or industry they serve.
• The Keys to Strategy Execution white paper download