Intergenerational leadership – A marketing furphy?

Australia’s next MasterManager

Adriano Zumbo's V8 cake: Perfect teamwork

As a manager you have to hope your team is not going to be as hard for you to wrangle as an Adriano Zumbo creation is for an aspiring MasterChef.

Did you see that angelic-looking V8 cake on the show last night? For those of you who did not, it was eight thin layers of cake heaven (well, Adriano’s was, anyway!)… eight layers of vanilla used in different ways, with more than 140 ingredients and four hours of cooking.  The picture is to the left and the recipe link is here.

The reason the cake is such a showstopper is that each layer builds on a theme and is very different from the others, but (and it’s a big but*), they are perfectly complementary and would not work nearly so well without the others. Hang on… isn’t that how a team should be?

It really made me think… if managers (and I am one) put as much effort and passion into understanding the ingredients of their teams, how they work together and how they work as a whole, many businesses may just be in even better shape.

I certainly can’t tell you how to do that in one blog post, it takes different combinations of training, personal development, mentoring and coaching, passion and plain old hard work, for different people. But if we think of Adriano Zumbo as manager and cake as team, we can better understand how important care and attention to each element is when you are creating something greater than the sum of its parts.

* Madly trying to avoid a joke about eating too much cake here

The yin and yang of sales

The yin and yang of sales

Some people may be able to ‘sell ice to Eskimos’ and others may be ‘born salespeople’, but I tend to disagree with the notion that great sales people are only born and cannot be made.

I believe that anybody who is passionate and believes in their product will inspire others to buy.

Furthermore, a natural ability to build relationships, through an empathic ability to identify people’s needs and wants (even when they cannot voice them!) will also close many a deal.

So all of these traits will bode well for a sales person’s potential to generate revenue.

However, I have also worked with many competent sales people who achieve solid results largely through hard work and discipline. These people may not necessarily be ‘naturals’ when it comes to relationship building and management, but their persistent dedication often gets them across the line.

I always hesitate to generalise, however perhaps we can conclude that there are at least two distinct ‘types’ of high achieving sales people. Leaving each ‘type’ with a variety of skills that can still be developed. Indeed, to be a truly great sales person, I believe people need to use tools from a variety of sources, with a range of leaders and mentors.

Sometimes this means training yourself (or being trained!) to go against a natural inclination. Good sales people who are strong on relationships can be coached in disciplined processes. And good sales people who rely on top notch systems can have their people skills developed, by good managers and training.

Having a mix of these natural skills sets in your sales team can only help. Companies that develop a range of attributes in their team may just elevate their sales from good to great.

What do you think makes for a great sales person?

Say ‘Konichiwa’ to sales… Japanese style

Sales skills, Japanese style

Despite its somewhat insular culture and on-and-off recession (mostly on) since the late 80s, Japan has a great deal to teach us when it comes to sales skills and techniques. It’s not the first thing that pops to mind about Japan, is it? Technology, yes. Quirky fashion, yes. Food, yes (yes, yes!). But a superior Japanese sales method? Really?

Yet the academy Business Sales training includes a discussion on the Japanese sales culture. Not the US sales culture. Not the UK sales culture. Not the Aussie sales culture. Although arguably the ‘Western’ sales culture permeates everything we discuss.

So why Japanese? Unlike some of the technology they offer the world, the Japanese sales culture is simple. It is simply that it’s all about the relationship. And both sales and service are extremely personal.  While the rest of the world perhaps relies too heavily on email and other timesaving communications, Japanese business people are still more likely to build and maintain a relationship face-to-face.  And this from one of the most digitally connected societies on the globe.

Customer relationship management

All this talk of relationship building sounds like it may cost in terms of time though.  I guess it needs a medium- to long-term view. If the person with the relationship gets the sale (sure in some cases, eventually!), then you end up ahead. Initial losses in time may mean eventual gains in productivity ratios or ROI.

Certainly it’s worth reminding ourselves of this next time we go to send an email.  You may not be able to meet everyone for coffee, but picking up the phone could be just the compromise you need.

A farmer in the office

Are you an education 'farmer'?

And no, I’m not talking about the person sitting in the cubicle across the way sneaking in a game of FarmVille on Facebook.

I have just watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk titled ‘Bring on the learning revolution!’ and I was struck with his plea for complete educational transformation. Not evolution. Revolution.

Sir Ken is discussing the way we educate our children and I couldn’t agree more.  However, I think his points apply equally well to how we cultivate talent and creativity in adults too.

I heartily recommend you watch the video link posted below. Sir Ken is both elegant and eloquent as he makes his points. But for those of you in a rush, the guts of the argument is that we need to move from systems of industrial education (the manufacturing or industrial model) where we churn people in a linear progression from Kindergarten through to university – to an agricultural model.

Agriculture. It’s a funny word when applied to education. But Sir Ken argues that human flourishing is organic. We need to cultivate the conditions under which it thrives… just like a farmer.

If you are an HR professional, you are in a prime seat to help customise education and training for the people in your organisation. You can be the company farmer. (Like me, I’m sure you’ve been called a few things in your time, but ‘farmer’ is probably a first!)

Please have a look at, and listen to, Sir Ken’s talk. I’m sure you will get something out of it. For me, it’s realising that all our efforts to deliver customised and exciting training to our students are worth it. By harnessing and directing our own passion for learning, we can effect wonderful change in people’s lives.

What does Scooby Doo have to do with leadership?

Have you had a 'Scooby Doo' moment?

Probably the funniest moment of a great speech I recently heard, was when Tyrone Pitsis told an ATA NSW Chapter executive luncheon gathering about his ‘Scooby Doo’ moment. If you’re wondering what he meant by that, the look on Scooby’s face above should give you a clue! To see more, you’ll need to catch Tyrone in full flight some time… something I highly recommend.

While Tyrone was having a laugh about a hiccough along his own leadership journey, I think the overall points he was making are extremely important ones. First, great leaders – and even good ones – make mistakes, dust themselves off, learn from it and keep moving towards their personal and organisational goals. And second, often, if something is worth doing it may not come easily.

Tyrone himself has had a colourful life, filled with challenges and what you might have considered mistakes (at the time). But each of those difficult times and so-called mistakes has contributed to his happy and stimulating life and career choices.

As a result of his own experiences and also his professional research into leadership and management, Tyrone shared with us his 6 key elements of leadership. I found myself nodding all the way through. You can see them either by clicking on the link or I’ll list them at the bottom of this post.

Leadership is so personal and great leadership is hard to define. But I believe it’s one of the most important traits to strive for.  Not everyone is born a leader, but – if you want to – everyone can develop leadership skills that will smooth the way in life and in business.

I’d love to know if you agree with Tyrone and, if you don’t, what you think is instrumental to visionary leadership. How do you define good leadership?

PS – You can read all about Tyrone’s leadership journey here – his tale takes us from life as a young Greek Australian in the rough Newtown and St Marys of the 70s, all the way through to his current role as Executive Educator and Researcher at the Centre for Management & Organisation Studies at UTS.

6 key elements of leadership

1. Lead how you would like to be led
   1. Respect others
   2. Be compassionate
   3. Be passionate, in key roles always surround yourself with passionate people and avoid the ‘yes men and women’
2. Keep your reputation (that is the only thing in your control)
   1. We live in unparalleled conditions of uncertainty, risk and ambiguity. It’s easy to compromise your values, don’t do it, it’s not worth it. Never compromise your values
3. Be liked, be feared but most of all be respected
   1. Create a positive environment to work
   2. Ask powerful questions
      1. Germany has a job title, ‘Director Powerful Questions’; Australia does not
         1. A question: “What service do we provide?”
         2. A powerful question: “What service do our customers want?”
         3. A really powerful question: “What services can we create with our customers both for now and the future?”
   3. Challenge common sense and the structures that lead to it
      1. Just because the world may look flat from where we are standing, it doesn’t mean it is
4. Celebrate ideas, and most of all, people with ideas
5. Invest in knowledge, development and education
   1. Break this Australian propensity to view academic ideas as ‘purely’ academic. The greatest organisations (especially those in Northern Europe), collaborate and involve universities and educational institutions heavily (be it Google with Stanford, Imperial College London, and so on)
   2. What’s worse in your eyes “spending money on people’s development with the risk they might leave”, or “not spending money on people’s development, and have them stay?”
   3. People are not your most important asset, talented people are
      1. The leader develops talent
6. Network (beyond just business networks), and collaborate

Training changed my life

Well, you’d expect me to say that because my business is training. But that’s exactly why my business is training. I could have chosen to sell widgets that make fridges work or business shirts. But I didn’t. I chose management training because, even on a bad day, I can feel like my business is making a difference to people’s lives.

If we’re lucky in our jobs, and we work for a company with a view to learning and development, we have the opportunity to enjoy some corporate training. Other of us elect to fund such training ourselves and do courses, big or small.

Management training ‘Eureka’!

My own training ‘Eureka!’ moment happened during my MBA in early 2003.

A university lecturer and corporate trainer (who now works with academy!) called Tyrone Pitsis was ‘railing from the pulpit’ as he was wont to do during a Managing People lecture.

He asked us if we had the guts to really ask ourselves two challenging questions, questions that have stayed with me a business leader and manager since then.

The first was “how do you know you are a good leader of others?” and the other was “why do people want to work for you?”.

My top two leadership questions

These two questions became light bulb moments for me.

I realised in the first instance that you could never, and should never, be able to answer the first, and that the business of leadership was a journey and not a destination.  True leadership is something to be continually strived for, and it’s different from person to person. Hints you are good, however, come when people actively want to work with you!

To this day, the second question is one that I ask myself many times each week (and I know my partners do too) – and in doing so, I hope we always find new and innovative ways to inspire and engage the people that make our business a success. Sometimes we succeed, other times we are less successful, but thanks to Tyrone I always ask the question. I’m still very grateful to him for that. Being challenged during training has taught me to challenge myself.

So, how has training changed your life? I’d love to see your comments.

About ‘I learn therefore I am’

My name is Mark Raven and I’m the chief executive of academy.  I run the company with my two partners, Michael Wolf and Neil Bowman, and we are very hands-on.  We’ve built from two part-time employees in 1999 to 25 full-time employees in 2010 and we train 2,200 people a year in everything from customer service through to executive leadership.

I feel lucky to do what I do for a living.  Running a training company means I am indirectly helping hundreds of people a year; as they update or learn skills, they develop professionally and personally.  For me, that’s exciting stuff and certainly what gets me to my desk at eight every morning. Well, that and the coffee.

Naturally enough I spend a reasonable amount of time thinking about learning. I believe in learning. I learn at work and I learn in my spare time too (as I head towards the end of what’s been dubbed by my family as ‘the world’s longest MBA’).

So the purpose of this blog is to pose questions about learning and development, management training, leadership training, call centre training, customer service training, sales training, talent management and so on… to put out the occasional opinion, share interesting ideas, to learn from my readers and to have fun – something we at academy think all learning has to include. While I will mostly cover management training issues and trends, there will be the occasional more general topic.  Please feel free to suggest any topic you’d like to explore.

Relationship Of Financial Management to Other Organisational Services

The financial management of a company is the very core of business as it brings the past, present, and future together. Organisations that are poorly managed in the financial area impact every other department from marketing to credit and collections. All eyes in the company must turn to the numbers at some point and all financial managers must develop the ability to communicate essential financial information in a way that makes it useful for decision making.

The financial dynamics of an organisation can be complex and impact every function of a business. Marketing can only build a campaign based on an allotted budget. Managers can only give salary increases to staff if the company is earning enough profit. Obtaining organisational credit relies on sound financial performance. Adequately outfitting a business with appropriate levels of management, staff, and operating resources relies on the company being financially successful.

Presenting…the Finances!

When you think about presentation skills, it’s normal to first look to the sales department meeting with customers or the call centre taking client calls or even debt collectors contacting clients. But financial management also requires developing presentation skills because financial managers must be able to present relevant information that leads to sound decision making.

In fact, financial managers require business training on many levels in order to be effective integrators within the organisation.

• Develop, interpret, and manage critical data
• Identify relevant financial information which assists departmental managers with decision making related to staffing and other resource management
• Identify areas where financial performance can be improved such as through increased debt collections
• Identify financially high risk areas within organisation
• Manage assets within company that leads to product or service improvements
• Manage accounts to produce increased sales and collections
• Develop cost savings measures
• Identify financial resources available which enable organisation to pursue strategies supporting mission

Personnel working within the financial management areas are employed in a variety of positions ranging from executive officers to front line managers. The interesting aspect of financial management is that it can be position which focuses solely on financial issues or it can be a job function included in a larger job structure.

For example, an accountant working in the finance department may only work with financial data and reports. A debt collection department manager may use financial management skills to monitor results but also manages staff, communicates with customers, and serves as the contact point between his or her department and other organisational functions.

Organisationally Pervasive

For that reason, it is important to determine all organisational positions which can benefit from financial management training. It is an essential function that is pervasive. Managers can use the skills to look back to see what has been successful and unsuccessful; to the present to determine if current strategies are successful; and to the future to establish long term financial goals.

Good financial management is essential for quality customer service, strategic planning, credit management, and marketing success. Financial management provides a barometer for competitive status and customer satisfaction.

Role of Management in Building Sales Through Accounts Control

Management plays a critical role in building sales through accounts control. One of the best strategies which can be employed to increase the bottom line is to improve the quality of the effort put into the management of accounts. Quality accounts control is concerned with building a sales organisation around the customer’s needs as opposed to attempting to sell products or services which are developed independent of the customer.

This may sound fairly obvious in the reading, but becoming a customer focused business requires that everyone within the organisation commits to the vision of customer satisfaction. From the executive office to the line employee working in a call centre, there must be a mission driven focus on the customer. In other words, after any contact with your business, the customer should come away with a sense the company has a pervasive interest in the satisfaction of the customers’ desires and will do what is necessary to achieve that goal.

One of the areas where a business has a clear opportunity to manage its customer relations in order to build sales is through accounts control. This is true for all businesses including those responsible for debt collection.

In the Business of Quality

Accounts control is a management function that can play an important role in the integration of internal business functions. Within accounts lies the power to retain customers, increase revenue streams, integrate ancillary departments including finance and customer service, and improve overall company quality.

When accounts are managed from the quality perspective, it means a number of things.

• Success measurements are well defined
• Performance data is useful for decision making
• Customer satisfaction drives management strategies
• Staff have been properly trained

In most businesses, failure to manage accounts leads to lost revenue and poor customer service. But accounts control is much more than just reading some management reports and deciding which accounts require additional collection effort. It should be seen as a strategy for improving sales through effective structuring and communication.

For example, the manager responsible for controlling accounts is often responsible for a call centre or a particular department within a company responsible for debt collection. To effectively implement account control techniques in a way that promotes business quality requires:

• Having well trained staff able to complete their job functions in a way that supports the company vision
• Developing staff competencies in conflict resolution
• Developing effective communication skills among staff within the department and between the department and the company
• Providing high quality customer service
• Being able to use information obtained through debt collection efforts to provide essential and ongoing feedback to company management

Accounts control is an essential function which touches on every other business function. It requires accurate report and data management, people management skills, communication skills, customer service skills, and an enormous amount of sensitivity. Poorly managed accounts usually lead to lost revenue and poor customer relations.

Proper management of accounts will increase collections, sales, and thus profits while contributing to the quality of the organisation.