MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

On December 21st, my family and I attended the annual Christmas concert held at our church featuring the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea. The orchestra, which is well known in the NJ/NY metro area, consists of 40+ professional musicians, 3 vocalists and is conducted by a Catholic priest - Reverend Alphonse Stephenson. His bio goes like this:

Father Alphonse’s very first orchestra was formed in New York’s Theater District while he served at St. Malachy’s, the Actor’s Chapel. His conducting debut was with bass soloist Paul Plishka of the Metropolitan Opera. In 1980, the late Broadway director and choreographer Michael Bennett engaged him as conductor and music director of his smash hit, A Chorus Line.

A student of the late George Schick of the Metropolitan Opera and Dr. Robert Abramson of the Juilliard School, Father Alphonse has been guest conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic, Delaware Valley Philharmonic, Metro Lyric Opera, the Greater Palm Beach Symphony Orchestra and the Key West Pops Orchestra.

He is the founder and conductor of the Festival of the Atlantic in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey’s largest outdoor music festival. The Festival’s popularity has led to Father Alphonse receiving the Monmouth and Ocean Development Council’s Silver Gull Award for Tourism Development.

He is a Colonel and the Command Chaplain of the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard, Headquarters, Fort Dix, NJ.

Father Alphonse is the founder of the Cecelia Foundation, a non-profit organization funded solely through private contributions and the sale of his Christmas recordings.  This effort brings the full orchestra to Catholic schools throughout the state and awards professional quality instruments to deserving students.

In keeping with his passion to introduce young people to good music, Fr. Stephenson frequently invites a youngster to "guest conduct" the orchestra while he hides backstage. This year he selected my ten-year-old grandson, Michael, to take the baton for Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. While Michael admitted he was nervous, he finished the piece and took his bows with Fr. Stephenson to resounding cheers and applause. What a great confidence builder for a student drummer!

Guest Conductor Michael Contreras

As a student of leadership I have observed how Fr. Stephenson’s knowledge of music, his demand for excellence, his relationship with his talented musicians and the way he interacts with his audiences has produced music that has encouraged me to return for the last 20+ years.

Fr. Stephenson’s approach serves as a model for leadership in the business world. A boss can be defined as successful if he or she:

• Knows the product line
• Demands quality
• Provides value
• Engages and appreciates the workforce; and
• Treats the customers right

BRAVO FR. ALPHONSE!!!

Comments Off

Nick spent most of his career at GM. He quickly rose through the ranks and became second in command at a Chevrolet plant in the NY/NJ metro area. Nick was one step from a high level position in Detroit when he declined a transfer and joined our firm. Owners of our tiny company had big hopes for him, but they continually questioned his prolonged approach to problem resolution and he was frustrated with what he considered to be limited company resources. Nick left the company after six years, finally accepting GM’s open invitation to transfer to Detroit.

Fred was an engineer by education and was well known. He progressed through the ranks of one the largest companies in our trade to the position of VP of Manufacturing before moving to another big firm. After serving as VP of Operations for 10 years at that company, Fred joined us replacing Nick. As a small but key supplier to Fred’s prior firms, our company was thrilled to have someone of his stature and notoriety on board. Unfortunately, the honeymoon ended quickly. With disillusion on both sides and after eighteen months, Fred joined another big manufacturing firm in Massachusetts.

When it came to leading people in a small business environment, these guys were fish out of water: The issues:

Poor people skills
In larger firms, where there are layers of supervision separating the big boss from the hands-on workers, people skills are less important. In smaller firms failing to acknowledge and engage your people can be "the kiss of death".

Inability to motivate
One of these leaders rarely acknowledged achievements, ideas or suggestions from subordinates and frequently took credit for the contribution himself. Another viewed new ideas and suggestions as dissention and would often respond with long and demeaning written dissertations on why the idea could never work. If you know anything about the dog-eat-dog environment in big companies, you can easily figure out why leaders feel they need to "protect" their own position.

Complicated and costly problem resolution
Larger companies can smother the problem with cash, equipment and people. In smaller companies there generally isn’t a fallback position; and to be successful, a leader needs to be creative, flexible and resourceful.

Slow reaction time
Change rarely happens quickly in large companies, nor does it need to. There are just too many levels of management and review for a plan to jump into action. In smaller companies, failing to respond quickly and accurately can mean disaster.

Ambivalence to the importance of the customer
In a big company, loss of a customer means little in the grand scheme of things. In a small firm hard-line or take-it-or-leave-it approaches become the talk of the trade, and when the competition is looking to survive - watch out!

Comments (0)

• Proclaim the good news with the bad news
• Publicly recognize those responsible for the good
• Privately talk to those who had a hand in the bad
• Offer suggestions and support for improvement

Comments (0)

Two weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a reader named Bob suggesting an essay on training. While training has been on my short list of possible topics for well over six months, it kept sinking to the bottom in favor of ideas that were prompted by more current events in my business life.

As I thought about Bob’s suggestion, I recalled a number of experiences in my career when training impacted performance. I’d like to pass along three of these instances for you to consider:

1. Early in my career, I was promoted from a Sales Service Rep to a Plant Manager. To provide an incentive to expedite the transition process and my raise, I was awarded the responsibility for recruiting and training my replacement. Unable to find someone with technical expertise in our line of business, I hired Frank who had some sales service experience in a totally unrelated industry. While waiting for Frank to start, I began a diary and tracked my activities for a week. Falling back on my Army experience, I recalled the MOI (Methods of Instruction) course I took as an officer and wrote a lesson plan during the following week. On Frank’s first day, I gave him an overview of what I planned to present and told him I expected him to be ready to take over in 3 weeks. The process was simple. I gave Frank a chair alongside my desk while I continued to perform the job. At the beginning of each day, I quickly summarized and reviewed what was discussed the prior day. Next I previewed what we would cover for the upcoming day. As I took on each call and executed the appropriate follow-up action, I related what I was doing to the material in my lesson plan. At the end of each day, I spent ten minutes rehashing the day’s activities. After one week we swapped chairs - Frank talked to the customers while I critiqued each call and action he handled. After two weeks and a day, Frank was in the groove and I moved to my new assignment and my raise.

2. Some years back I was recruited by a highly specialized manufacturing company to manage the day-to-day operations while the owner could focus on increasing sales. In spite of my solid management background, I was at a total loss when it came to the technical aspects of the business. I can remember sitting at the daily production meeting feeling like a foreigner unable to understand the basic terminology and the processes of the operation. Although I repeatedly begged the owner for training, he had neither the time nor the disposition. Instead he placed me on auto-pilot figuring I could learn by osmosis. I guess in way he was right - I did eventually teach myself. However, for nearly six months, I was a part-time manager and dramatically limited in my ability to contribute.

3. Soon after joining a package printing company as VP of Operations, my new boss gave me his take on each of the key personnel who would be reporting to me. The profile for the Operations Manager, Jorge, was quite negative. Jorge was hired a year before I started and came from a container manufacturing plant in Central America. While he was bilingual, he had only a "textbook" understanding of English. Others in the company were quick to share stories about Jorge’s ineffectiveness as a manager. Fortunately a long time ago, I learned to formulate my opinions based on my own personal observation. As I got to know Jorge and began to question him on some of his management decisions, I found he was "thrown to the wolves" and had no training whatsoever. As I spent time with him, I found him to be bright and eager to learn. In addition to soaking up the management training I provided, he began to take a series of courses in night school. In one year, Jorge clearly became the most valuable person in the operation. Some viewed me as a miracle worker, yet Jorge deserves the credit for his metamorphosis - all he needed was training and a chance.

As I have sometimes done on other essays, I asked my daughter, Julianne, to look at this entry and critique it. As an accomplished high school teacher, I thought her input on this topic would be particularly appropriate. She suggested a change in the order of the examples I cited and helped me clarify some of my thoughts. Also, she thought I should add a closing paragraph to tie these instances together. On this last point I disagreed and decided to allow you to see the value in each example and draw your own conclusions. I hope you did!

Bob - Thanks for lighting the fire under me and making this a current event!

and

Julianne - As always, I value and appreciate your suggestions, advice, help and support!

Comments (0)

In kindergarten Miss Schweitzer and Mrs. Mueller would line us up in our tiny chairs across the classroom. Sitting on one end, Miss Schweitzer would whisper a word to the child closest to her asking that it be passed along until it reached Mrs. Mueller on the other end of the row. As many times as we would try it, the word that was finally heard by Mrs. Mueller was never the one initiated by Miss Schweitzer.

Just mention the game "Telephone" to anyone and I’ll bet that person can tell you about similar experiences that go well beyond kindergarten. In spite of this widespread knowledge of how ineffectively people communicate, I’m always surprised when managers and supervisors verbally pass along important information or instructions "down the row."

While there’s a lot to be said for a one-on-one personal approach in business, detailed information or instructions need to be clear, concise and written.

DOUG CONTRERAS

Visit my profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougcontreras

I welcome your invite to connect!

doug@performancedatamanagement.com

---

Comments (0)

Way back when and on more occasions than I care to remember, factory workers would complain to me that their immediate supervisors were playing favorites. Most often this issue surfaced as a result of overtime assignments or during layoffs & recalls. Until I was asked for some advice on this subject from a friend of a friend, I had forgotten how I made this a problem of the past.

As one who has managed companies in both union and non-union environments, I learned that this type of grievance was noticeably absent in union shops. In my opinion, the reason was simple - the contract generally provided a negotiated set of rules that addressed issues like the awarding of overtime or selecting personnel for layoffs and recalls. Even in instances where contracts were lopsided in the favor of the company, employees accepted the rules as long as they were uniformly applied.

So if you have a non-union shop, consider a written procedure that is published for all to understand and follow. Set up your procedure in a way that satisfies your needs and prevents the possibility of subjectivity on the part of your supervisors. Make sure the procedure is well-publicized and uniformly enforced.

For example, equitable distribution of overtime could be accomplished by using a rotating list. Such a procedure might be written up as follows:

Equitable Distribution of Overtime

1. The VP of Operations and the Director of HR will set minimum measurable performance standards for each job category.
2. For each job category, HR will prepare a list of workers who meet the minimum standard. Each list will be prepared in descending seniority order.
3. As overtime is needed, the immediate supervisor will ask each person starting with the most senior and record the date and time.
4. A decline to work counts as having worked.
5. The supervisor will rotate down through the list giving each person a chance.
6. After three passes through the list, the list will be returned to HR and the process will be repeated going back to step #2.

Comments (0)

• Is the candidate organized?
• Can he or she remain cool under fire?
• Does the person have the capacity to understand the technicalities of the processes being managed?
• Is he or she a team player who can work & communicate equally well with management & subordinates?
• Does the candidate have a strong work ethic that is recognized by others?
• Does he or she have people-skills?
• Can the individual openly admit to a mistake?
• Will he or she accept criticism and help from others?
• Can the person avoid being “one of the guys?”

Comments (0)