The big problem? Finding the time, when everyone is ‘doing more with less’.

One simple answer is an innovative, affordable strategic leadership workshop, with an experienced trainer-facilitator. This should include a front-end analysis, pre-work (if desired) and an industry preparation work-up.

This workshop can be funded by state funds: CPS has  funded 95% of all the training work we did  in 2010 with such funding, which most businesses do not claim. The basic cost for such a day with CPS is $3,000. This includes all preparation and training materials, for a group of up to 18.  Optional post-training coaching is by arrangement.

We show clients how to do the red tape work, or do this for them, so that they get their training funding within about 3 weeks. (Unfortunately, non-profit companies do not pay these contributions, and not eligible for funding.)

All CPS workshops are customized. Many have “basic bones” that we build on, but each project includes visits to the client business, an understanding of your issues, a work-up of your industry, and serious thought about your specific opportunities and challenges, before facilitating the workshop.

The “bones” of a strategic leadership day may include:

1. Pre-work:

• Self assessment against major strategic leadership competency groups.
• Self assessment seeking growth opportunities  in personal communication and relationship patterns that affect senior leaders.

2.  The roles and work of the strategic leaders.
Individual views on the mission, vision and values of the organization.
The One Thing: the key task that strategic leaders need to get right.

3.    Mutual agreement on the philosophy, objectives and strategic vision of the organization (required for aligning operational tasks and processes)
The core challenges (for business and for the organization).
Building a strong, agreed-upon, strategic base and communicating this to the organization.

Personal skills that support the strategic leadership process (review of pre-workshop tasks)

4.   Tools for the Task.
Five factor analysis. This is done on the basis of the front-end analysis.
SWOT (or SOAR). (A facilitated group task. CPS has a non-disclosure and signs it for the SWOT.)
Various thinking tools depending on time, e.g. Third solution, Ichikawa, the Pareto etc. These are influenced by factors such as the needs of the organization, the distance over which teams communicate, and the degrees of innovation in the industry.

5.    Scenario Planning.  CPS researches your industry and keeps up with the economy on an on-going basis.

6.    Consolidation.

Options

You may choose to have the workshop in a different format, or to include virtual participants if your venue has this technology. The workshop can be in two sessions, or may be held outside of Tampa Bay. [Funding does not cover travel.]

The workshop day or sessions can be held at at a venue of the client’s choice. CPS offers the Centre Club, Tampa Palms Country Club or similar. (These calm and peaceful settings are costed by CPS at $250 per group, for all meals, refreshments, venue, AV etc. This is eligible for funding.)

CPS offers the option of having an extra senior business counselor present, or one of Tampa Bay’s ‘up and coming” young business strategists with graduate qualifications in entrepreneurship and technology.

CPS has done strategic planning and leadership work with teams, departments and companies, including small, medium and large companies. We can help you start 2011 with a clear, winning strategy, and a strategic planning process that will work over and over again.

Please contact CPS to schedule a Strategic Leadership Workshop day.

Sincerely

Glynis Ross-Munro

813 598 9184 /glynis@c-psolutions.com

The aquatic metaphor is also apt. We swim in our culture, so like fish we do not notice it. It is the water that surrounds us, and we don’t analyze it. It is simply the environment in which we live.

The other common image of culture is the onion. Our daily lives are framed by layers upon layers of  unseen assumptions and mind-sets. Because we have no need to conceptualizing our world differently, we seldom see it through different interpretations, until some rather dramatic event gives us new eyes. Or until we choose to study behavioural sciences that may help us see many things are hiding, in plain sight, right in front of us.

One layer of the onion that interests me particularly (especially in recession) is the way that trust and collaboration operate in US business, and how this often limits opportunity and prosperity. I am also interested by the way that numerous scientific studies and popular books prove that our tendency to withhold trust and collaboration is ineffective, but it still prevails.

Let us call the general trend we can all observe the “small pie approach”. Small pie behavior says “If you win, then I am probably losing.” Small pie behavior prevents sharing ideas (they could be stolen and claimed by others), networking (others may get to know our prospects and then steal them), growing and building others (they may grow more powerful/successful that us and displace us) or trusting others (they may use us and then stab us in the back when they have gained all the benefit there is to gain.)

Let’s look at the science.  As always when examining culture, remember the mantra: cultures are not right or wrong, they is simply different. We are all acculturated, and one cannot make value judgments about cultures.

Firstly, as a culture, in the US we think short-term. Trompenaars noted that the US is a very present-oriented culture. Geert Hofstede measured the United States’ Long Term Orientation at 29, compared to the world average of 45. This aspect of culture is one of those deep, unseen and unnoticed dimensions which one seldom sees if one has lived all one’s life within a short-horizon thinking world.

Planning horizons in the US are less than 5 years, whereas they are about 10 years in Europe. They are closer to 20 years in the Far East.

Present-oriented cultures tend to expect shorter term relationships. Long-term “people farming” (which includes putting oneself on the line for people, and demonstrating caring and integrity over long periods of time) is therefore not core to such cultures.

Secondly, the US is a specific-oriented culture. We therefore tend to keep private and business agendas separate, and we tend to “box” our relationships into clearly defined sectors. We do not invite our contractors home to hold our babies and play with our dogs, and we are surprised when this happens in certain foreign countries. We have ‘mental boxes’ for tennis friends, gym friends, place-of-worship friends, and work friends. Few people overlap between these categories. As such, trust and collaboration are limited to the particular box in which a person fits.

Thirdly, as all social scientists note, the US is the most individualist nation on earth. We value individual achievement and self-determination as the highest form of personal development. While collectivist cultures value group well-being, and group belonging, as the apex of development, individualist cultures measure self-improvement by the achievement of our own potential.

(This is only beginning to sink into some US human resources departments, who are often still happily using Maslow’s hierarchy. This has started changing because individualist reward systems have produced some very odd results with collectivist Asian, African and Hispanic employees.)

Anthropological data like Trompenaars’ and Hofstede’s research is neither new nor secret. There is a Hofstede iPhone application (CultureGPS) to help international business people to understand US-international differences when traveling. You don’t get more mainstream than that free Mac apps!  http://www.culturegps.com/About.html

Let us turn to the many books and websites that prove that the “small pie” approach is more than ineffective: it is counter-productive to the development of wealth.

• Many things from McKinsey (e.g. Lowell L. Bryan, Claudia L. Joyce’s Mobilizing Minds)
• Most things from FranklinCovey (e.g. The Speed of Trust)
• Anything (almost) with the words Integrity, Innovation, Ethics, Collaborative Intelligence or Collaboration in the title (e.g. The Integrity Dividend, by Tony Simons)
• Anything (almost) that you can Google that talks about how ethics, trust and collaborative intelligence are profitable.

We live in a world where our international competition is often better educated, less fearful and more confident that we are. They are forging ahead in an age when collaborative intelligence and innovation are the keys to wealth, and when cooperation in the only answer to an Age of Complexity.

We can, however, collaborate more, trust more, make our pie bigger, and keep enlarging it.

The barriers we need to fear are the barriers we cannot see, or which we become defensive about, when we do see them.

So it is now time to look at Big Pie people. You can probably look around you and see who builds you, connects you, inspires you and encourages, irrespective of the gain to themselves. There is your first collection.

Visit www.zipcar.com, an example of bigger pie thinking, that uses the concepts of mutual trust, also known as cooperative capitalism.  Robin Chase has another new venture too, called GoLoco.

Bigger pie thinking is seen in many of the ventures called social entrepreneurship, where trust, ethics, and social responsibility move from non-profit to a ‘more-than-profit’ or blended business models, in which everyone wins.

You have seen an example of small pie thinking in the last week or two. You have probably behaved in a small pie way in the last week or two. So have I.

We can do better. Each day we can consciously reach out and make a bigger pie for everyone, build our community, our region and our nation.

I will work with you. Tell me what I can do to make your pie bigger, now or in years to come. I’d like to invite you around to play with the dog and baby, but my ‘baby’ has a masters degree now, and lives in Korea. My old dog has passed on.  Perhaps you have another suggestion? I’m listening.

If we make a bigger pie now, our children will dine well.

Only a small percentage of our workforce are trained in the skills needed to manage information overload, and to communicate effectively by “e-writing.”  We have developed this relatively new form of writing to control the avalanche of text in business, and to:

- get responses, drive action and results,

- build collaboration and teamwork, facilitate collaboration etc.

Studies show two trends amongst those who can both e-write, and do the thinking work that lies behind good writing.

a) Good skills in writing for the 21st business environment save knowledge workers 30 – 90 minutes per day, and improve productivity, service, effectiveness and teamwork  quickly and easily.

b) Those who can write (and think – because writing is the result of thinking) are significantly more successful in their careers. They are more employable, climb the ‘career ladder’ more quickly, earn significantly more than those with similar qualifications and are much more likely to reach positions of major responsibility.

Who is likely to have text-email-information overload problems?

1 – People who report being pressured, “doing more with less, and struggling to be more productive.

2 – Those whose phone calls often go to voicemail.

3 – People who cannot attend meetings or even training – even on-line meetings. They are so pressured for time that they do things like call in to meetings from nearby offices, so that they can get work done while still being “present.”

4- People who work odd hours, in different places and time zones, or while traveling or telecommuting. Engineers or safety inspectors who lack good writing skills may burn out as their reports eat into personal time.

5 – Project managers and those on task-forces. Tasks are more complex, so there are often many people involved in projects, email goes to multiple people at once, or there are multiple documents loaded onto central servers. The degree of overload shows in misunderstandings, project delays or other problems.

6 – Organizations with multi-generational employee profiles (i.e. a growing Generation X and Y employee base) often struggle with mountains of text. The GenX/Y text-based culture often intimidates the Boomers. Gen Ys are often intimidated by their inexperience in beginning a task from a pile of text, or preparing for a meeting from preparation documents. (The generational cohort may need a “pre-meeting” to go over the meeting documents, and to work collaboratively to process the documents into a mental framework. Boomers are more likely to send out the meeting documents, and struggle through them alone, to be prepared for a meeting.)

How can you see systemic e-writing problems, or assess the business impact of skim-reading and multi-tasking?

You can assume that most people are overloaded with text-based information, and “doing more with less.” Most people skim-read, usually while multi-tasking. You will notice that:

7 – Hours of careful writing and graphics often go unread, or achieve patchy results.

8 -  New employees may produce time-consuming, careful writing and document design. They later start banging out the quick, low-quality communications, that are often unplanned, unclear, incomplete or ineffective.

9 – Email is used as a low-cost, low-quality “write and hit send” way to communicate. The results is mis-communication or communications are ignores as irrelevant.

10- Weak E-writing impacts relationships: you will see casualties such as trust, collaboration and teamwork.

11- Communication lacks effectiveness: you will see a lack of responsiveness, cooperation, action and results.

Good skills in writing for the 21st Business environment save knowledge workers 30 – 90 minutes per day, and improve productivity, service, effectiveness and teamwork  quickly and easily. CPS open courses are available in Tampa and at USF Lakeland. In-house and custom courses are available anywhere.

The new writing skills gap:
21st century business people do not need 20th century “business letter writing skills.” They need writing solutions that make the most productive use of their time, and give them solid skills to:

• Communicate clearly-thought, well-structured, complete and accurate messages, quickly and effectively,
• Elicit responses (e.g. encourage replies or get cooperative assistance),
• Drive action,
• Build relationships and trust, even when written contact is the only communication channel,
• Maintain collaboration and teamwork.

Open and in-house CPS workshops:
CPS offers one-day scheduled open workshops Most open workshops are scheduled at the Centre Club, Westshore, Tampa. There are also workshops in Lakeland at USF Polytechnic.
In-house workshops are available, and can be customized as needed. Multi-national/multi-lingual organizations might find a different CPS workshop more suitable. This workshop is called Communicating over Differences and Distances.

Funding: Funding is available for groups of 10 or more on open courses, and for all in-house courses. Some problems exist in certain non-profit situations. It is especially easy to get funding for non-profit healthcare organizations.

Lakeland: This program, and other CPS programs, are available through USF Polytechic in Lakeland. Please contact nboyer[@]poly.usf.edu and support the growth of your local business economy and educational programs. There is no price difference, but Glynis is basically staff here, so most of your payment will go towards building Lakeland educational resources.

Further information:
The business case for 21st writing skills is discussed further at: http://c-psolutions.com/2009/07/the-business-case-for-writing-skills/.
There is a quick and easy sign-up page for Tampa workshops at: http://c-psolutions.com/category/workshops/. Please sign up for Lakeland courses directly with USF.

Please contact glynis@c-psolutions.com or Glynis  813-598-9184 (direct) or  Hilton 813-598-9180 (direct) or Hilton@c-psolutions.com. Hilton will help with funding requests. We look forward to working with you, and your team members.

You can use the following information to develop a company-specific spreadsheet to estimate your turnover and retention costs. CPS does not guarantee that this list is complete.

The 2008 WIR report begins the cost of staff turnover at 1.5 x annual salary. Please let me know if you would like to see that report. Email: Glynis[@]glynis.com

Turnover includes both direct / measurable costs, and indirect / hidden costs.  Both will show up on your bottom line.

The following calculation assumes that your employee gave you two weeks notice. You also had two weeks of job vacancy, which you covered with a temp employee.

You can estimate hourly employee salary costs the easy way: Hourly employee cost = annual salary divided by 1000.

Calculating hourly rates: the average employee in the US works about 2,000 hours each year. Add benefits, payroll costs, and the various other costs of having an employee (people have this habit of needing break-rooms, coffee and bathrooms that businesses have to pay for). Employee time therefore costs out around annual salary divided by 1000. (CPS always reminds our clients of this, when one of the Counties pay for our services: we’re not really free – you’re also investing!)

So what is your turnover going to cost, for the average employee?

Direct Costs

Termination of outgoing employee
• Termination processing – administrative support: 0.5 hour, HR rate
• Temination processing – management: 2 hours, management rate
• Exit interviews – human resources staff and/or external consultant: 1 hour
• Severance pay: $?
• Accrued vacation: $?
• Continued benefits: $?

Vacancy period
• HR liaison with temp agency: 2 hours, HR rate
• Temporary help – 40 hours wages @ $
• Temp agency service commission @ $
• Accounting: checking details and payment of temp agency: 0.5 hours, (A/c admin rate
• Alternative: Overtime for co-workers @ 80 hours

Recruitment
• Writing and placing job ad: 1 hour, HR rate
• Running job ad @ $ (Web and/or print options)
• Alternative: Third party recruiter fees @ $
• Other (e.g. referral bonus) @ $
• Administering and monitoring recruiting process: 2 hours HR rate

Selection and hiring
• Application screening: 0.5 – 3 hours, HR rate
• Interviewing: 3 – ? hours, HR and management rates
• Reference check: 1.5 hours +, HR rate
• Job offer and negotiations (job level dependent): 0.5 + hours, HR rate
• Finalizing employee contract: 0.5 – 1 hour
• Relocation cost? $?
• Other (e.g. signing bonus)? $?

On-boarding, orientation and training
• New hire processing (e.g. benefits set up): 1 – 2 hours, HR rate
• Orientation: 2 hours, HR rate + employee (new hire) rate
• Orientation materials such as employee literature @ $?
• Uniforms, company shirts, stationery, computer software and setups, equipment @ $?
• On-boarding, in-house training, coaching @ 40 hours + (employee time)
• On-boarding, in-house training, coaching: ? hours at trainer/mentor/buddy/management rate (depending on class size, shadowing etc.
• Training materials, equipment and other costs @ $?
• External training @ $?
• Other (e.g. licensing, certification fees depending on industry)

Total of Common Direct Costs

Indirect Costs
• Lost productivity of incumbent, prior to departure (estimate: 2 weeks prior to departure): 50%, 40 hours, employee rate
• Lost productivity of co-workers or subordinates (estimate: 2 co-workers x 2 weeks): 25%, 40 hours, employee rate
• Lost productivity/time of supervisor during vacancy (2 weeks) 30%, management/supervisory rate
• Lost productivity/time of supervisor during on-boarding, orientation and training: 30%. 40 hours: management/supervisory rate
• Lost productivity of new hire during initial transition (week 1): 50% – 100% depending on the nature of training/on-boarding program: 20- 40 hours, employee rate
• Lost productivity of new hire during weeks 2 and 3 of transition (assumes a relatively simple learning curve). 25% + or 20 hours.
• Increased defects/operating errors during temp’s work period (vacancy period) or new hire’s transition to competency: $?
• Dissatisfied or lost customers during vacancy or transition. Varies considerably depending on whether employee forged relationships with customers or ran key systems: $?
• Missed opportunities during dislocation (by outgoing employee, new hire, distracted co-workers, manager/supervisor or temp): $?
• Other: e.g. damage to trust, motivation, teamwork. reputation or employment brand. This depends on the circumstances of the termination, and is affected by the personality and generation of the old employee and those who remain. The managerial skills of the supervisor/manager affect this too. Look at sites like www.glassdoor.com to see some effects of current and outgoing employees using the transparency of the web. The ubiquitous flashdrive-on-the-keyring goes out the door with the employee, and with it may go proprietary information. Please see www.managingthemillennials.com/survey. Please contact www.c-psolutions.com for these results.

Total of Indirect Costs: $ _________

Total Costs of Turnover (Direct + Indirect): $ __________

Building trust and understanding between these diverse groups is not easy, either for the team members concerned, or for managers and learning specialists who facilitate the process.

Everyone has an “I” consciousness and a “we” consciousness. The “I” focuses on self achievement, self responsibility and autonomy. The “we” identity focuses on connection to our reference groups, and our relatedness. This emphasis varies from person to person, and from culture to culture.

I grew up in Africa, where many people have a mainly collectivist approach to life. In business, one usually asked African clients about their families, because it is impolite and cold to do otherwise, yet one discussed impersonal subjects like the weather and a little politics or economics with Caucasian clients. (In some cultures, like the UK, it is quite normal to discuss politics. Right after the weather, which always comes first!)

When working with learning groups from both Collectivist and Individualistic backgrounds (think of Puerto Rico and the US for example) it was often helpful to ask how some of these differences might affect group dynamics, for instance:

Innovative out-of-the-box thinking (I) vs. loyalty to group interests and approval (C)
Individual achievement (I) vs. group affiliation as a basis of group standing (C)
The right to have unpopular opinions (I) vs. the importance of group harmony (C)
Personal initiative (I) vs. consensus-based group action (C)

This concept can be used for team-building and inclusivity work, because people love to teach others about their worlds. People also love understanding what makes them tick – e.g. in Africa, Individualism is stronger in people who are more urbanized and whose tribal identity and affiliation are of lower importance. (This showed up as a factor in my first graduate degree thesis).

Create space for concrete and personal narratives, and jumpstart these by sharing a story of your own – e.g. I have an Anglo-Indian father, and Welsh, Irish, French, Dutch, African and Malay blood, and can trace threads of both traditions through my family and friends. It gets people thinking and talking.

A critically important issue when working with culture is to create a cheerful awareness that differences exist, that we’re learning to understand them, learning about each other, and that different is not wrong, it is merely different.

Heavy read: Try “The Geography of Thought : How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why” by Richard Nisbett. It explains how people from Eastern and Western cognitive traditions often process information differently. Nisbett gives details of how a mix of thought patterns may offer a competitive edge, and lead to innovative breakthroughs in many industries.

Hilarious read: Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Social Anthropologist Kate Fox. Not related to Individualism/Collectivism, but an essential for any bewildered American who has to deal with the British, and a great gift for anyone who grew up in English culture, so that we can laugh at ourselves.