Valhalla Business Solutions - Business Management Consultants

Sales Management Consulting Specializing In... Sales and service Systems, Managing younger generations, Management protocols Coaching effectiveness

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Delegation

Identify tasks/projects to complete

· What can be delegated

· Choose the right person

· Delegate

Delegation is rarely used as effective as it could be. Often managers are perfectionists, they prefer to take work home or work late. They will override decisions made by their team frequently. Consequently, managers teams struggle when they are absent from the office. Their teams don’t take initiative or accountability for the operations of their department. These managers when absent from the office come back to large piles in their inbox, email, etc.

If you don’t delegate, you are not a good leader. Delegating to team members provides empowerment, development and accountability to the team. Anticipate and be comfortable with mistakes, your team will display much more initiative if they feel they can learn from their mistakes.

How?

· Identify the task to complete

o Analyze your job function. What are you evaluated on? When you write down the things you do daily, weekly and monthly. Which of these things can be done by your subordinates?

o Choose the right person. Contemplate your team’s talents and hard skills. Also consider their interests and career ambitions. What exposure will my team member get? How will this improve their skills?

· Delegate

o Request help. “Chris, I need your expertise on this.”

o Communicate why. “You have the best relationships with our marketing department and design team!”

o Seek acceptance. “Would you be willing to take on the preparation for the sales teams trade show in Denver next month?”

o Describe the details. “Here is what’s involved…”

o Affirm deadlines and standards. “Design, materials and travel arrangements need to be coordinated by the Friday the 22^nd at 11:00 a.m. Please have final complete for me to review on the Wednesday the 20^th at 11am as well.”

o Discuss check in points. “This month let’s start your one on one 10 minutes early to review your progress on this specific project. How does that sound?”

o Acknowledge you are a resource. “What do you think you need from me on this? This is your show, but if you need further guidance don't hesitate to ask and I will direct you the right resource or show you how to complete.”

Labels: calendar management, career, Coaching Teams, effective manager, employees, feedback, Restaurant Management, Sales Coaching, Small Business CEO, Small Business developing your team members

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 10:10 AM 0 comments

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Now I am a Manager, What’s My Job?

I had numerous conversations with managers this week, so many struggling with the production of their teams, struggling with pressures from their superiors and so on. There are many common denominators to the adversity manager’s face, but one shadowed the rest this week. A manager so often believes they are brought in for their “Technical Work” strategies. This is not the case. What is “Technical Work?” Technical work would be the day to day work of a plumber or the day to day work of a sales person, realtor, and mechanic and so on.

A plumber installs piping. A sales person makes sales calls. A realtor shows houses. The mechanic changes oil.

How is a manager measured?

· Production of their team

A successful manager understands they are not measured by their great ideas or solutions, but the solutions created and implemented by their team. This statement may confuse many managers, but take a look back at how you are measured.

What does a manager do?

· Creates a learning environment

· Builds a team

· Emotionally engages their employees

· Recognizes the efforts and successes of the technical work being accomplished

· Opens the door to communication

· Welcomes ideas and solutions

· Promotes Self Discovery…

· Customer Service to employees

· Creates frequent communication forums for their teams

If a manager can immediately adopt a strategy of soliciting solutions from their team, then trust and encourage their employees to see it through. The successes will be endless.

Labels: Coaching Teams, development, employees, feedback model, internal customers, management, management expectations, small business, Small Business CEO, Small Business developing your team members

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 9:37 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Keep Your Employees

Keep you Employees

Hiring Process
High Expectations
Recognition
Feedback
One on one
Promotions

I felt compelled to write this after a conversation I had with a client. This manager was truly torn with the idea that one of his employees was leaving his organization to work for someone else. He really struggled with the lack of loyalty. When the truth is what process have you as the business owner done to create loyalty? You may as the manager emotionally feel it. You have invested time, money, etc. However that is what a business owner values in a relationship. An employee has different values.

Valhalla has many solutions for creating loyalty, however here is some simple steps...

Hiring process- Behaviorally determine if this employee has a track record for loyalty. Ask questions such as...

Talk about a job you were truly passionate about, why?
Tell us about a time you felt your loyalty was in question, what was the situation? What did you do?

These are questions that can assist you in determining loyalty. However loyalty absolutely cannot be your only basis for hire.

High Expectations- A manager often has really high expectations for themselves, but as they begin to hire folks, they begin to negotiate the standard to win over their employees emotionally. Never, ever negotiate a standard. In the long run your people will lose respect for you as the employer. Employees frequently need to be challenged and they deserve to have high standards. Your customers deserve the same.

Recognition- this may seem simple, however it is not done nearly enough. Valhalla believes a worst case scenario would be recognizing once a day. Recognition is NOT gift cards, time off, celebrations. Recognition is catching people in a behavioral act doing it right. Then providing feedback.

Feedback- your team deserves to hear what is correct and incorrect from you regularly. Team members want to know they are doing it right. Or what they need to do to improve. If they are not growing they are more likely leave.

One on one- this is just a piece of Valhalla's "Effective Manager Calendar," but its the most important. Your team members deserve their time with you. Time discuss successes, concerns, personal life, etc. It is another great tool for evaluating progression. This is where they need to hear about how they are progressing in their career. They need vision and goals to obtain.

Promotions- Promote good results, good behavior and good skills. Tenure means absolutely nothing. If tenure is your value I wouldn't recommend anyone work for you, nor would I patron your business. I want the best service every time! Setting performance as your standard encourages better performance.

Labels: Coaching Teams, corporations, economy, human resources, Sales Coaching, small business, Small Business CEO, Small Business developing your team members

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 9:07 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

What Makes a Good Manager?

What makes a good Manager?

A good manager provides...

Expectations
Tools
Accountability
Development
Recognition
Solutions

In today's world, management skills often struggle to develop within individuals. There are many resources to improve a managers skills, but so many managers refuse to resource appropriately. This happens from the most senior management down to the floor managers. The bottom line is the production of your organization is a result of your management's effectiveness. Yet so often management's development is ignored. Valhalla's management development consulting invests a bulk of their services into managements development. Truth is, if your behind on your sales plan, projects, time lines, budgets, etc. its managements fault. When an employee becomes a manager, frequently it is assumed they know what they are doing. Then as their career progresses bad habits are formed from watching their superiors repeat and do the wrong things. Consistently we witness managers who manage by reacting to their environments. They have hot buttons or themes of the day. Strategy and proactive solutions fail to exist. They resort to gimmicky motivation techniques such as games and contests. Many managers give multiple priorities that result in their people not doing one of the priorities effectively. Valhalla's management development consulting focuses on the effectiveness of each manager. Managers deserve skill development and tools to make their jobs easier. We also provide ongoing foundational solutions for managers to be successful from the beginning of their careers on. For an organization to grow, the growth of its people, especially managers is the most critical piece.

Fortunately in my career I had the opportunity to have great mentors and leaders. In fact I was witness to one of the best managers I have ever seen. He is who I credit so much of what I have learned. Learned about process, systems, fundamentals and what it takes to a move a team on a macro level with measurement and accountability. When you witness a good leader you absolutely know. He brought direction, answers, frequent communication, resourcing, and most importantly development of his managers and an expectation his managers provide the same.

I have also witnessed great teachers. Peter Drucker stands out as one of the most influencial in forming the processes and coaching techniques we use today. Michael Hortsman also a disciple of Peter Drucker, brings great communication and step by step solutions to the management world. I have learned so much from them in my making companies successful.

Labels: calendar management, Coaching Teams, corporations, effective manager, feedback model, management, management expectations, Small Business developing your team members

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 10:38 AM 0 comments

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Four Effective Ways to Coach

1. Modeling:

Coach shows the team member what the activity looks like and sounds like. Modeling is an effective coaching method to use throughout the coaching process.

2. Role-Play:

Practicing the specific activity and behavior. Role-play is vital; it allows your team members to hear what it sounds like coming out of their mouths. Often times it sounds very different from what the team member thought it would sound like when they visualized it. It is important as a coach you make this a safe environment for your team members to make mistakes. Plan for objections, forecast customer responses, etc.

3. Personal Observation:

Personal observation is seeing and hearing your team member’s work with clients in live situations. When doing personal observations we have found they are most effective when you focus on observing a specific behavior or activity you can provide feedback to your team member. (i.e. greeting a customer)

4. Resource Coaching:

Find the experts to educate your team members more effective ways to perform specific activities. You may find these resources in-house for example other managers, human resources, other departments, etc. As well as resources outside your organization for example seminars, college courses, etc.

As a coach it is important for you to decide on effective ways to coach individual team members and cultivating an atmosphere for the greatest personal growth.

Labels: Small Business developing your team members

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 12:56 PM 0 comments