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Two Truths
Nearly everyone who follows business in America has an opinion about what needs to be done with automotive industry, specifically with General Motors.
I am questioning whether or not this formally great organization can be saved from itself. From poor leadership. From poor management. From employees who refuse to understand the dire situation the company faces.
While it is true that the company has been losing massive amounts of money, product lines have been trimmed because they were not profitable and thousands of jobs have disappeared, all of this has been happening for years.
Back in 2005 the company lost $10.6 billion and Jerry York, one of the leaders, announced at that time he had a plan to “turn things around.” That was four years ago and the company is still singing the “balance sheet blues”.
York’s plan started with the idea that everyone involved with the company having an understanding of what the situation really is. In the best selling book “Good to Great” author Jim Collins would call this ‘facing the brutal facts.’
Apparently there are still thousands of folks who are in denial about the situation at GM.
One of the keys to getting people to actually grasp what is taking place is an education of, and understanding of, the fact that there are legacy costs that can no longer be part of the survival plan, and that current wages and benefits of those working in the company are beyond the ability of the company to maintain into the immediate future.
The sad part of this is two truths. The first truth is that what was in the past, what happened in the past, cannot continue in the future. Things change, and that is the evolutionary process of life and business.
The second is that many employees no longer have trust in the management of the company. There is simply so much negative history, baggage if you will, between employee and employer that the employees no longer believe what management says.
Employees could be told that the “sky is falling” and they will believe it as much as they will the statement that “we can’t make payroll this week.” Only the later might be true.
GM lacks alignment. This means that the marketing department with multi million dollar advertising budgets is not out trying to gain market share by dropping prices and offering low cost financing at the current time. This means that company personnel understand that asking for a raise is not a great idea at this time. People have to get their collective heads out of the sand and wakeup to the fact that they are operating in a world that is far different than it was just a few years ago. This needs to be translated into a very simple phrase that everyone can understand: stabilize sales and stop the bleeding. Pennies, every one of them, count.
This is not easy to do in a large organization filled with squabbles about turf and budgets when hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line, not just at the company but with vendors and dealers. But it is required for survival. But will it happen? It’s doubtful.
This is a company that went to Congress in December 2008 and again in February 2009 for billions of dollars. Do they even have a handle on their cash flow needs?
Like most companies, GM should have done this analysis a long time ago. Too many companies never take the time to do this kind of review; they look at the gross revenue (sales) and then never look to see how much is actually being contributed to the profit line on the income statement.
At GM, the final step, if they make it that far, should be to take out a clean piece of paper and start fresh. Those in charge will most not likely use a “no sacred cows” approach to determine the future course of the company when it is required. Despite a possible visit to bankruptcy, when the company exits, it is likely to be more of the same.
Does GM have what it takes to get tough to avoid falling back into the same old company with the same bad habits? It will require a new discipline, new habits and reinventing a culture focused on the future not caught up in the past.
Such is the fate of many companies who fail to change when the world around them changes.
Super Jobs Information gives information on how to get a job and how to hire good people. If you are looking for Aluminum Castings Jobs look at this website. This SEO Information will give you more information you can use for Search Engine Optimization.
Glamour of Promotion?
Each of us has flashes of insight that soon dim, maybe to resurface at some quiet moment when we are reflecting, even years later. I had one of these moments over the weekend.
Many years ago my immediate supervisor got a new boss. They had mutual respect and got along well; both working towards the same goals. I found it quite interesting when my boss pulled me aside one late afternoon and commented about his new boss: “He is really full of himself, isn’t he?”
I replied that I had witnessed plenty of people get promotions and that pretty soon the spotlight would disappear, the glamour and newness of the new title and responsibilities would wear off, and we would all settle down and focus on the job at hand. My boss looked at me as if I was some sage from a faraway land, and he nodded, and accepted my comment at face value.
In a work environment, anyone with any amount of confidence and self esteem believes that they are doing everything or almost everything, right and don’t feel the need for criticism or input. Even people who don’t know what they are doing often put on the airs of showing that they know what they are doing.
Maybe it is the nature of a competitive environment. Work is highly competitive, for more pay, a new title, more responsibilities or attention of the boss. The chase for these things just might cause each of us to appear invulnerable.
In Corporate America, I received, fairly regularly, performance appraisals. Some were conducted well, some were not done well at all, but the goal was always the same: to provide an evaluation as to how I was doing against my specific areas of responsibilities and objectives (long term and short term) and to provide a path for improvement going forward.
Fear plays a large role in evaluations. When I performed a performance appraisal, I did my best to make certain that the employee knew what they were responsible for and met with them regularly to coach them to achieve their goals. I didn’t like being surprised by evaluations and I made an assumption that those that worked for me wouldn’t care for it either. I conducted on-going dialog to improve the process, make it less stressful and the tough conversations, if I had to have them, easier to conduct.
On the other hand, my response to these conversations and human resource generated documents when I was being appraised were usually one part shock, a dash of denial and a pinch or so of anger, even if the appraisal of my performance was solid. After some time passed, I learned to accept what was written about me, shock, denial, and anger dissipating.
I say this because I always believed in my head and my heart that I was working hard, doing the right things, juggling multiple projects and tasks, not letting things fall through the cracks, supervising and managing my people well, and helping the company.
However, I was seeing all this through my own eyes, my own expectations and my own vantage point. I didn’t take into account was that I was part of a team and that what I did, or didn’t do, and how I did it or didn’t do it, how I communicated or didn’t, impacted others to a far greater magnitude than I understood.
Once the shock died down over the fact that I was being evaluated on tasks and responsibilities than I didn’t know I had; over how I was rated on skills that I thought were so wonderful and got past the anger of realizing that my boss didn’t really know what I did all day (and usually didn’t care), I calmed down and took in stride what I needed to work on to become a better employee, supervisor, manager and team player.
Performance evaluations are a strange thing in most organizations. Employees need them, but don’t want to have them; managers know they must be done but put them off because having a difficult conversation with a subordinate about how they are doing and what they need to improve upon is not easy.
What makes it even worse is the combination of the longer the employee has been employed and the longer the time period between appraisals.
There are a lot of reasons for not having performance appraisals on a regular, scheduled basis with every employee. Every one of those reasons is an excuse.
In these economic times having candid evaluations is an excellent way to reduce the stress of the uncertainty of continued employment and to improve productivity.
Knowing exactly where an individual stands and what they need to do to improve their performance helps people get grounded and focused. It provides confidence to the employee. It strengthens the role of the manager.
It makes the company a better place.
Super Job Information gives information on how to get a job and how to hire good people. If you are looking for Zinc Die Casting Jobs look at this website. This Zinc Die Casting Blog will give you more information you can use for zinc castings.
Execute or You will Lose!
The Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals was an excellent example of how executing will win or lose a game. The Steelers won because when they needed to, behind in the score as the game clock started to run out of time, they scored a touchdown and won the game.
I am not taking anything away from the Steelers, they are an excellent team and deserved to win. Personally, I was rooting for Arizona.
In business, it is the same thing: failure to execute will cause a company or organization to fail to achieve the objectives which it has set to survive or succeed.
Now is the time for every single leader, manager and employee to stop focusing on all of the external and internal distractions that lead away from doing their jobs.
The newspapers, magazines, television newscasts and talk shows, radio shows (satelite, over the air, internet) are all filled with nothing but negative news about the economy. People are hooked on the addiction of reading, seeing or hearing that tens of thousands of people are being laid off by companies.
Let me give you a newsflash: the companies that are laying off those kind of numbers have been doing it for decades. You read that right, the Fortune 1000, the Forbes 1000 and many other public companies have been downsizing for years. Only now that these firms are doing it in the thousands, feeding the frenzy of bad news that the media just loves to report. And, to keep reporting because fear sells.
Just like sex sells, so does fear. Fear sells viewership, fear sells readership and fear sells listeners. As those numbers (subscribers) go up, more advertisers jump in, seeing an opportunity to take control of more eyeballs and more ears. (The only problem is that most advertising is a waste of money).
So, what should you be doing now? Turn off the talk radio and news radio. Stop reading the paper; if you have to read the paper, go to the sports section for your fill. Cancel the news magazines, they are filled with more opinion now than news. In other words, stop feeding the fear and negativity and instead, do something else.
DO THE JOB YOUR EMPLOYER IS PAYING YOU TO DO!
If you don’t know what is expected of you, or not crystal clear, right now (as in TODAY!) is a great time to find out. Sit down with the boss and ask a very simple yet critically important question: “How can I help the company right now?”
If you know what you are supposed to be doing, have a quick conversation with your boss and ask: “I need for you to tell me three things that I could do better to achieve what you want me to do, please tell me what they are.”
Then listen. Don’t open your mouth. LISTEN. Let the silence be deafening.
Write what the boss tells you. Don’t argue, don’t push back. If you need clarification, ask for it. Be specific about what you are seeking and when th boss replies, write it down so you don’t forget. Read it back to the boss so he or she understands that you know what you need to be doing better.
At this point in the business cycle, all that really matters in a business is three things:
1. Have the customer place an order
2. Serve the customer, fill the order and provide the service in the manner the customer wants.
3. Collect the money from the customer for the service or product.
You want to know about all those people who are getting laid off? They didn’t understand the three things that must happen for a company to survive. They didn’t do what was needed to help a company survive. They didn’t do enough of it. They didn’t do it often enough. Or good enough.
I am sorry so many individuals are out of work. I have been out of work myself, and it is not a comfortable place to be. A friend told me that being out of work is worse than having a prison sentence, and I asked for clarification, not understanding his comment. He explained that someone in jail knows exactly when they will be released. Someone out of work has no idea when they will be hired.
If you are out of work, I’d suggest you take a look at the short list above and decide which one of the three key areas you can most help a company you want to work at. Most companies today are looking to see if they can add more people interested in “having the customer place an order” (meaning, produce revenue) than the other two, but that depends on the company and the industry.
And so it was with the Cardinals last Sunday night. They did not do what they needed to do when they needed to do it. And today, if you aren’t doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you might find yourseld on the outside looking in.
Super Job Information gives information on how to get a job and how to hire good people. If you are looking for Zinc Die Casting Jobs look at this website. This Zinc Die Casting Blog will give you more information you can use for zinc castings.
