Author Archives: Tom Foster

About Tom Foster

Tom Foster spends most of his time talking with managers and business owners. The conversations are about business lives and personal lives, goals, objectives and measuring performance. In short, transforming groups of people into teams working together. Sometimes we make great strides understanding this management stuff, other times it’s measured in very short inches. But in all of this conversation, there are things that we learn. This blog is that part of the conversation I can share. Often, the names are changed to protect the guilty, but this is real life inside of real companies.

Correspondence?

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How many hours a day do you sit in front of a computer, responding to email?

In my father’s day, it was called correspondence. He would receive letters, reports in large brown envelopes and he would dictate his response to a secretary. The secretary would type the response and leave it in his INBOX for signature. This was correspondence.

And I am certain that my father blocked off a portion each day for correspondence.

That word, correspondence, has been lost, but the activity, albeit electronic, is likely to consume more of your day than in my father’s day.

So, how many hours a day, do you sit in front of a computer, responding to email? And in those hours, what strategies do you use to be more efficient? What strategies do you use to be more effective?

No Internal Agreement

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This concludes our conversation with Jaynie Smith, author of Creating Competitive Advantage.

Tom:
As we move from the recession to recovery, and as we attempt to acquire new customers, gain market share, where do customer and client disconnects occur?

Jaynie:
Again, our research shows that 90% of companies have no internal agreement on what matters to customers. We always ask our clients to guess which three attributes came in 1, 2 and 3 in their customer research. Not only don’t they guess it right, they have no agreement amongst themselves. So how can the market-place receive what it values when the internal team is riding off in 25 different directions. The answer is simple: It can’t. We must have internal agreement based on the voice of the customer to know where to concentrate operationally and in alignment with our sales and marketing messaging.

You can find Jaynie’s book Creating Competitive Advantage at Amazon.com.

Even In a Down Turn

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This continues my conversation with Jaynie Smith, author of Creating Competitive Advantage.

Tom:
Can you talk about the necessity of integrating marketing elements with operational reality to drive new ideas into existing and emerging customer segments?

Jaynie:
Our research shows that 95% of companies are not focused on the things that matter most to their customers and so their resource allocation is not aligned operationally with delivering what matters most to their customers.

A tour operator spent lots of time and money chasing industry awards only to learn that it matters last on a list of 20 attributes to their clients. But would-be travelers wanted solid knowledge delivered by their destination specialists. This company invested in everyone who sold a “continent” to make sure they had traveled to the countries sold and had extensive ongoing training relative to the vendors used. Cross training, then became the next operational investment. This company is booking at a better rate than nearly all of their competition even in a down turn.

The conversation continues the rest of this week. You can find Jaynie’s book Creating Competitive Advantage at Amazon.com.

Managing Time, Managing Yourself

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Next Monday, we kick off our next Subject Area in Working Leadership Online, Managing Time, Managing Yourself.. Based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done, we will explore ten Time Management Disciplines. You select the one or two that work the best for you.

Working Leadership Online is growing. For our Friends and Family, we are holding fifty slots available for our Free Introductory Membership (and 22 are already filled). If you would like to secure one of these slots, just follow this link.

Working Leadership Online Free Trial

Here is what we know about our community.

  1. Our participants have a day job, as a manager.
  2. Our participants are really busy.
  3. Our participants want to be more effective, now.

This is Real
Working Leadership Online is practical. There are no quizzes or tests. There is no make-work. This is not extra work. The Field Work is real.

At Your Pace
Participants login on their schedule.

Unforgettable
The problem with most training programs is they stop. After a few classes, it’s over, good luck. Working Leadership Online goes year-round. It changes the way you think about your role as a manager.

How This Works
Your first Subject Area is on us. Then you decide. We are holding the next 50 slots. Word is already on the street, so we expect to close this offer in the next few days.

Here’s Some Feedback

This program is anti-matter to today’s barage of costly management solutions. The program covered a great deal of critical leadership material that managers can immediately benefit from. -Cathy Darby

Some people live online and I’m not one of them. I’d much rather be in a human presence. Having said that, after Tom’s first response he won me over. His honesty and feedback is invaluable. -Jane Hein

There’s a lot of valuable information in this course that isn’t easily available elsewhere, and the coaching from Tom in addition to accountability for actually carrying out the assignments makes for a solid learning experience. Keep up the good work. The online format makes the course accessible, and makes it easy to put into practice directly in a work environment. -Erik LaBianca

www.workingleadership.com

Here is the schedule for the coming year.

2010 Subject Area Schedule (Total 15 Subject Areas in 2010)

  • Jan 11 – Planning – Your 2010 Business Plan – COMPLETED
  • Feb 1 – Goal Setting – The Essence of Time Span – COMPLETED
  • Feb 22 – Decision Making – Time Span of Discretion – COMPLETED
  • Mar 15 – Managing Time – Managing Yourself
  • Apr 5 – Spring Break
  • Apr 12 – Communication – Mineral Rights Conversation
  • May 3 – Delegation – Leveraging Time Span Capability
  • May 24 – Control Systems and Feedback Loops
  • Jun 14 – Team Problem Solving – Time Span Inside a Team
  • Jul 5 – Summer Break
  • Jul 12 – Coaching – Bringing Value as a Manager
  • Aug 2 – Coaching Underperformance – Time Span and the Employment Contract
  • Aug 23 – Coaching High Performance – Time Span and Maximum Capability
  • Sep 13 – Fall Break
  • Sep 20 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Accountability
  • Oct 11 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Hiring Talent
  • Nov 1- Time Span and Effectiveness
  • Nov 22 – Break (Thanksgiving USA)
  • Nov 29 – Bringing Out the Best In People
  • Dec 20-Jan 9, 2011 Winter Break

Reserve your spot today – Working Leadership Free Trial

It’s Not Location, Location

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This continues my conversation with Jaynie Smith, author of Creating Competitive Advantage.

Tom:
As companies expand their product and service offerings to fill holes in the market, created by retreating competitors, or even retreating suppliers, what should companies consider now to update their expanded strategies?

Jaynie:
A company should focus its resource allocation, future strategies and internal accountabilities on what the customer thinks is most important. A commercial real estate client of ours has 200 buildings in which they lease office space. Research showed tenants seeking office space overwhelmingly wanted “security” above all else. My real estate client was floored… This means, maybe they take a few bucks from, say landscaping, and add it to the security systems budget. Research often catches companies off-balance when their previously held belief is turned upside down. This real estate client was certain that the number one attribute valued by their clients was “location, location, location”….it was important, but not, first, second or third. It came in fourth. Times they are a-changing.

The conversation continues the rest of this week. You can find Jaynie’s book Creating Competitive Advantage at Amazon.com.

Remove Risk

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This continues my conversation with Jaynie Smith, author of Creating Competitive Advantage.

Tom:
In an attempt to scratch out precious points in market share, which will multiply during the recovery, what changes should companies design into their marketing strategies?

Jaynie:
Companies should delete the “blah, blah, blah” cliched messages of yesterday and substitute with solid metrics that speak to reliable past performance. Unlike a mutual fund, past performance is the best indicator of whether or not you can deliver in the future. We need to build confidence and remove risk, more than ever, right now, in their buying decision.

So, we don’t say…”we will deliver in 24 hours”, that is a promise. No one believes promises anymore. But if you say, we have measured on time delivery for the last 3 years and are tracking at 98.2% , customers know you hold folks accountable for it, so you have more credibility.

The conversation continues the rest of this week. You can find Jaynie’s book Creating Competitive Advantage at Amazon.com.

Whiplash in the Market

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If you think we are at the bottom of this recession and can breathe a sigh of relief, think again. Year over year, we may see improvement in sales volume, but even as your revenue builds, there is still whiplash in this market. So, I spent some time with my friend Jaynie Smith, author of Creating Competitive Advantage.

Tom:
As we make this slow turn from recession to recovery, what are the biggest mistakes companies make attempting to re-engage their markets, the ones, by necessity, they have contracted away from?

Jaynie:
Most companies are delivering yesterday’s value proposition, using old messages, and assuming their customers and prospects have the same buying criteria they did two, three and five years ago. Markets change and certainly with this recession, each company has redefined what it values in making purchasing decisions.

For example, we have seen, across the board, in the last year, market research showing that, despite the industry, many buyers want to know the vendor/supplier they choose has strong financial stability. Yet, few marketing and sales messages address this key attribute. We have seen prospects tell our clients, first and foremost, they want to receive easy-to-understand and accurate billing. Simple.

All this makes sense in view of the recession, yet few companies take the time to learn what their customers truly value in today’s world.

The conversation continues the rest of this week. You can find Jaynie’s book Creating Competitive Advantage at Amazon.com.

How Do We Learn?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Hello Sir,
I am doing M.B.A (Finance) in University of Wales, Newport. I need some advice. What are the different ways to improve Managerial Skills? Could you please narrate this topic. I am a very big favourite of this blog.

Thanking you, -Yatish Kumar

Response:
Yatish, this is a very serious question. And it’s not just how we improve Managerial Skills. How do we learn anything? We can sit in classrooms, we can review case studies, we can study theories. But how do we integrate that into our daily behavior that makes us more effective?

Henry Mintzberg, Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal is adamant about how managers learn. “MBA classrooms overemphasize the science of management while ignoring its art and denigrating its craft, leaving a distorted impression of its practice. This calls for another approach to management education, whereby practicing mangers learn from their own experience. We need to build the art and the craft back into management education, and into management itself.”

I first read Mintzberg more than a decade ago. He is likely the single most powerful influence on the way we structured Working Leadership Online. It’s not about case studies, it’s about you. It’s about you, working as a manager, in real life, struggling with limited resources, under the pressures of time, the recession, a toxic team member. It’s not Leadership. It’s Working Leadership.

Yatish, I am enrolling you in a Free Trial. And I am extending the same to the readers of Management Skills Blog. This is my Friends and Family program and the community is growing.

Working Leadership Free Trial

Our next Subject Area kicks off on March 15, Managing Time, Managing Yourself. Hope to see you online. -Tom Foster

Time Management Focus

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“Great looking list,” I commended. “So, how do you work it?” We had been talking about Marie’s project list and her daily to-do lists.

Her brow furrowed. “I look at the list, and really, I just start working on whatever I think is easiest to get done right then. Or I try to pick off an A priority. But here’s the rub. We just spent half an hour working on this list, and it’s likely I won’t even look at it again until next Tuesday. I don’t use it to focus, I mean, I don’t even look at it. And I don’t know why. And then something falls through the cracks.”

“What do you use to focus?” I asked.

“My calendar. I have a lot of meetings,” she replied. “I live and die by my calendar. I look at it ten times a day.”

“Then, stop making to-do lists,” I challenged.

“But, I thought, as a manager, that I had to make to-do lists? It’s one of those big Time Management ideas.”

I smiled. “That’s the trap everyone falls into. There are only about seven Time Management principles and the dirty little secret is that you cannot use them all, some principles won’t work for you and you won’t work some principles. So stop. Stop doing what doesn’t work and stop feeling guilty about it.”

“So, if to-do lists don’t work for me, how do I keep things from falling through the cracks?”

“What do you use to focus?” I repeated.

“My calendar?”

“Then, everything goes into your calendar.”

“Won’t my calendar get kind of messy?”

“What does it matter? You look at it ten times a day. It’s what helps you focus.”

Running Out of Time

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“You are actually suggesting that I don’t prioritize?” Marie was having trouble with this.

“I know it sounds like heresy, but think about this. What is the biggest difference between an A priority and a C priority?” I nodded slowly.

Marie hesitated. “Well, it’s either more important or it has to get done first.”

“Good guess, but tell me, have you ever approached a deadline on a C priority and had to complete it before an A priority?”

“Sure, it happens all the time.”

“Then what does that say about your priority system? And bottom line, it all has to get done sometime, just schedule it. If it doesn’t have to get done, it shouldn’t be on your list in the first place.”

Marie was still trying to protest. “But, if I work hard all day and if something doesn’t get done, at least it was the C priority.”

“You are a manager. If there is something you can’t get done, it should be assigned to someone else. At the end of the day, don’t tell me something didn’t get done because you ran out of time. It did not get done because you did not manage it correctly.”