What 'skar' is Covid-19 leaving on your business?

Every person and every business has been changed by the impact of public health measures to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus. One big change in the UK has been the furloughing of staff. With several months of the scheme left more than 8 million people who are normally in work are being asked to stay at home.

In talking to clients and networks we’ve heard the benefits of this scheme and the limitations. One thing our team can see is the potential scar the furlough experience could leave on millions of people and businesses. The loss of productive purpose for several weeks or months and the impact of knowing you are ‘not needed’ will change workforces across the country. If businesses think that all their people will be able to switch from furlough to being immediately productive and highly flexible they need to think again.

Cathey Broderick, Greater Manchester Business Growth Hub noted that when lock down eases companies, “will need staff that are more productive, more flexible, than ever.” The nature of work in many businesses will have drastically altered and the patterns of commuting, behaviours and teams will be changed permanently.

So. it stands to reason that for forward thinking companies the question is not, ‘Should we invest in supporting our furloughed staff?’ but rather, ‘How are we investing to support our people?’

Know+Do’s way of enabling companies to ensure the productivity and performance is not scarred by furlough but rather that they are SKAR-red by it! The acronym SKAR stands for:

• Skills

• Knowledge

• Attitude

• Routine

We’ve pulled our expertise and resources to make a bespoke, 4-week furlough support programme for staff. This is available live online to groups of up to 8 at a time. The training supports their well-being and provides a structure where individuals can be encouraged to keep their edge and be ready to return to work when needed.

The programme is priced at cost to ensure all businesses can make the investment - at just £99+VATpp or £499+VAT for a group of up to 8 people. A video and detailed information leaflet have been produced to explain more.

Whatever your business scale or context, if you have furloughed staff we encourage you to invest in them, ensuring that they and your business are in peak shape after lock down.

If you would like ideas about staff support please contact Andrew or Bernard on info@knowanddo.com or call 0161 2804567; and please stay safe!

The Art of Great Delegation

This week I had the privilege of making a presentation to fellow members of the Institute of Directors in Manchester, UK. I was asked to share how Directors could approach delegation in their business to be more effective in their role.

What fascinates me about working as a leadership coach and trainer is that despite everyone in the room being a Director, each person came with a different expectation of what they needed to explore around delegation. My professional challenge - and the fun part of our work - was to take my prepared presentation and weave the audience’s expectations into the hour. I managed to reference the legal issues, leadership styles, change management, making time, devolving authority, sharing responsibility, harnessing technology and dealing with growth; all the questions they were interested in!

Underlying, the techniques I shared to improve daily delegation I referenced two guiding principles. This was because having access to a technique to use is only one part of effectively deploying a skill; knowing the principles behind it allow you as a leader to adapt, develop and contextualize the technique. The two principles behind great delegation are:

1. Know the purpose. Delegation deals with the ‘What’ of business, the things that need to get done. However, starting with the what is not a leadership perspective it is fulfilling a management duty. Leaders need to be clear on ‘Why’ something is happening and ‘How’ it is delivered. So, if a Director were to ask me or my Know+Do colleagues to help them solve a problem around delegation we’d want to know the purpose of the business, its mission, its key targets, its values. Those why factors that drive behaviour, decision making and define success. Then we check out the how of a company - its key strategies and processes, its ways of organising itself and its 'internal ‘rules’. This is so we can place the delegation issue in context and how we solve that must reference why the business exists and connect with how it operates.

2. Leadership is a daily practice not a one time event. By this we mean everyday the people in, or connected to your business, will need you to lead them. People are not static, they change, evolve and grow. Businesses are dynamic, new sales arrive, the economy changes, the competition gets better. Delegation is therefore not something we do once and forget about; it is something we do and repeat. Finding ways to ensure we have sufficient energy, the right attitude and sustained motivation is crucial to leading a team, whatever its size or context.

In the presentation a great deal more was shared. Techniques on quick planning for delegation. Principles to measure a delegation strategy. Language in differentiating delegation levels. How to ask questions in the right format. But the principles to great delegation underpinned the practice: Know why your business exists and work hard on your skills as a leader. After all, as a Managing Director I know well shared with me just last week:

“Delegation only works well, if the one delegating works!”

For both principles I shared a template to map and assess the business and the leader. If you want to find out about these contact me on bernard@knowanddo.com and I can share the templates with you.

5 Ways to Stop Your Growing Organisation Becoming Chaotic

View fullsize

Last week I spent several hours with a group of brilliant business leaders who want to scale their companies on another cohort of our Inspiring Business Leaders series. We delved into the leadership they need to grow their businesses and explored how to generate high performing teams in a context of constant change. They left the session with tools to assess their own leadership skill set, ways to motivate teams and an approach to measure success.

Although many topics were explored in the seminar, one that was most revealing came when we mapped the organisational structures in the room. Everyone could draw (albeit some more neatly than others!) their current organisational map. However, thinking ahead 2 or 3 years and drafting how the people in a business should connect was much harder. Running a company of 10 or 20 people is busy; but leading a fast growing business or 50, 80 or 100 will be very, very messy without a plan. Success, in the case of these entrepreneurs really could ‘kill’ their business.

So, we shared 5 ways to get control of these impending changes and stop organic development or employing ad hoc roles that will unbalance a fast scaling business.

1. Know your purpose. Have your purpose written down in a succinct, clear manner so everything you do can reference it maybe even add your core values. Without this guide, your memory of the reasons you state now will fade as you become busier and events will shape your business, as your decisions will not be made to a consistent plan.

2. Remove yourself from the mix. If you are the founder or leader now, try mapping the future of the business without your name in the chart. This way it forces you to think through your role and responsibilities and divide them up. It can also stop you building a business that just amplifies your weaknesses!

3. Draw, draw it again and then re-draw some more! An organisational map is not the only plan you will need but by writing it down and putting pen to paper the thoughts in your head become clearer and also you can share this plan with others and continually refine it.

4. Chose a scale. If you do not have business plan with targets choose a multiplier, e.g. in 3 years time the business will have 10 times more customers. Then you can consider what functions are needed as specialisms or what teams you do / do not need in a future business to serve that demand.

5. What does it mean for you? When a future organisational map is drawn look at the difference to how it is now and consider the skills, knowledge and experience you role needs to develop in. If you are a leader, you need to set a plan for your own development so you change with the business and do not hold it back. What training, what experiences, what change do you need to make to be ready for the ‘new’ shape to your business?

If you have begun to map the future you can then set the plans to transition from your current state of business to the desired state. You have a barometer to judge the decisions the business leadership make as opportunity and challenge come your way in the next few years.

If this challenge seems to new for you, reach out to someone more experienced or to an appropriate consultant to help. Clients often tell us that their problem was solved because they had the right people with them to explore an issue and set a plan to change.

Finally, what do you do to map the future of your business? Have you found an effective way to visualize the future? I’d welcome your views and insight in the comments section below or contact me direct on @berneeclarke.