National Clothesline

How do we, as owners and managers of our businesses, learn how to be more effective in the leadership and management of our companies?

I like Peter Drucker’s answer from The Effective Executive:

“Effective leaders come in all kinds of sizes, shapes and personalities. Some are extroverts; some are introverts — even painfully shy. Some are eccentrics, some are painfully correct conformists. Some are worriers, some are relaxed. Some drink heavily, some are total abstainers. Some leaders have great charm and warmth; some have no more personality than a frozen mackerel. Some look and act like a great leader. Others are colorless and would attract no attention in a crowd. Some are scholars and serious students; others are almost unlettered. Some leaders are self-centered, if not indeed selfish. But there also are some who are generous of heart and mind. So yes, effective people come in many sizes, shapes and personalities.

“But the one trait — yes the one trait — effective people have in common is that they have developed processes and systems that make effective whatever they do. ”

(Don’t read on until you truly understand the above sentence, which is the essence of what Drucker defines as an effective executive!)

“But whenever I have found an executive, no matter how great the intelligence, the industry, the imagination, or the knowledge, who fails to observe these practices, I have also found one deficient in effectiveness. And these practices are the same whether you work in business, a government agency, as a hospital administrator, as a university dean – [or owner of a drycleaning plant!]”

Can effectiveness by learned?

The answer is a resounding, “Yes.”

Drucker says, “Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit. It is a complex of practices. And practices can be learned. ”

Practices are simple, deceptively so. But practices are always exceedingly hard to do well. They have to be acquired.

Even an eight-year-old has no difficulty in understanding a practice. For example, the multiplication table, 6 x 6 = 36, repeated ad nauseum, becomes an unthinking, conditioned reflex and a firmly ingrained habit.

Here are examples of systems or practices that make effective people successful!

Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, said it very simply. “I don’t teach employees how to make a hamburger. I teach them the system. And if they religiously practice the system they will always make a perfect McDonald ’s hamburger whether the store is in Moscow, Beijing, or Indianapolis, Indiana.”

Do you want to make sure every garment leaves your plant ready to wear?

Develop the system and then train your inspector to consistently follow the system. When she looks at a jacket, she grabs the cuffs and looks to see if all the buttons are on. Then she turns the cuffs over to see if the cuffs are spot free.

This is not a practice she does occasionally or when she feels like it. It is a conditioned response that she does automatically, insuring that the jacket is ready to wear according to the practices and standards the company has identified for maximum customer satisfaction. It is done 100 percent of the time.

What happens if she gets sloppy and the practices are not followed?

• Mistakes occur.

• Customers are dissatisfied.

• Sales and profits are eroded.

I got a shirt back from my friendly drycleaner the other day and a cuff button was missing. How could that ever happen? The answer is, “Well anyone can make a mistake.”

WRONG! You cannot make a mistake if you practice the proper inspection procedure and it becomes an ingrained habit. Then you will never overlook a missing button.

• Think about what Federal Express or United Parcel have to do in order to pick up a package in New York City at 4 p.m. on Monday and have it delivered to someone in San Francisco by 9 a.m. the next morning. And that package is dependably delivered 99.2 percent of the time on time.

• Do you want to establish a binding, personal relationship with your customers? How? Write a script that uses the customer ’s name at least twice. Train your customer service representatives to use the customer ’s name. Wouldn’t your customers love that?

I had a customer service representative (The title sounds better and has more dignity than “counter girl,” doesn’t it?) who would have the customers’ clothes ready when they got to the counter, yet never used the customers’ names.

“Why,” I asked, “don’t you use the customer’s name?”

“Because I’m afraid I will mispronounce it.”

With a little confidence training, this person learned how to use almost every regular customer ’s name properly and with confidence!

Do you:

• Want to reduce your employee turnover? Practice and practice the entire recruiting system until you develop the perfect model?

• Find recruits for the job in the most effective way?

• Interview the most effective way?

• Ask consistent questions that help you know more about the candidate?

• Become an employer of choice?

• Develop orientation programs?

• Design creative praise, recognition and incentive programs?

Again, develop a complete and effective hiring process and you will dramatically reduce employee turnover.

Get sloppy in your interviewing practices — take shortcuts — and you will hire the wrong people. This will result in costly employee turnover, which in turn will erode productivity, produce sloppy workmanship, and create dissatisfied customers. Can you imagine what that does to your profits?

One learns each process perfectly by practicing and practicing and practicing, over and over again, to gain competence. With effective people, it becomes a habit.

Assignment 5: Audit your systems and processes.

Many good companies spend more time in processes that are harmful to the company than doing productive processes that speed the bus along the road to profitability. A “stop doing list” may be more important than a to-do-list of what you ought to be doing.

• What systems need to be documented and institutionalized?

• What are some examples of processes or practices that are harmful to your company and should be eliminated?

• What new processes should be developed and implemented to improve productivity, customer satisfaction, improve profitability and reduce turnover?

• What seats on the bus need to be changed?

The third biggest reason for high turnover occurs when there is not a shared alignment of the employees ’ core values and the company’s core values.

How can we ascertain if employers and employees share the same values?

The company must identify its own core values and repeat them passionately and consistently at every opportunity (See Resolution 9).

The following quote is from a great book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, by Verne Harnish: “…a strong culture leads to superior performance, higher employee retention, and a better-aligned organization. Equally important, a strong culture driven by a handful of rules (core values) makes leading people much easier, reduces the need for stacks of policies and procedures, gives everyone a foundation from which to make tough decisions, and generally brings simplicity and clarity to many of the ‘people’ systems within a firm.”

Here are some Core Value Statements from some of my clients:

Responsibility: Being accountable and taking ownership of actions.

Integrity: Honestly and sincerely doing the right thing even when no one is looking.

Competitiveness: A challenge and/or strive to perform better than the set measurement.

Personal growth: Investing in the improvement of skills, knowledge and wisdom towards the development of an individual.

Cooperation: The ability to compromise while working toward a common goal.

Taking Risk: Using experience and wisdom to reach for opportunities in a supportive environment.

We act honestly, fairly and are forthright in all dealings.

We believe in teamwork and in helping one another.

We keep our promises and commitments.

We believe in working hard and enjoying what we do.

We seek to represent Tirpok Cleaners with the highest level of professionalism and consistency.

We believe in hiring good people and providing them with opportunities to learn and grow.

These values are posted in all of their stores.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. (not my client, unfortunately), quickly grew from one hotel in 1983 to over 55 hotels in 20 years.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. was founded on principles of groundbreaking levels of customer service. The essence of this philosophy was refined into a set of core values collectively called The Gold Standards: The Credo, The Three Steps of Service, The Motto, The Twenty Basics and The Employee Promise.

To this day, all 28,000 ladies and gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton know, embrace and energize these guidelines, aided by their constant presence in the written form of a pocket-sized, laminated card.

The Gold Standards are introduced at intensive orientation training for new employees. Thereafter, the concepts are reinforced in daily departmental “line-ups” attended by all employees.

The Gold Standards provide the basis for all ongoing employee training; The Ritz-Carlton is an industry leader in providing 120 hours of training per employee per year.

Although much-imitated, The Gold Standards as embodied in The Credo Card remain an industry first and are a blueprint for the success of the Ritz-Carlton. Every employee has the business plan of The Ritz-Carlton in his or her pocket, constantly reinforcing that guest satisfaction is our highest mission.

Assignment 6. Develop your company’s core values.

Start by meeting with all your employees and begin asking the following questions:

1. What do your people do that you like?

2. What do your people do that you don’t like?

3. What do your customers say differentiates you from your competitor?

4. Why are your best employees important and valuable to your organization?

5. Ask your people to recall employees who didn’t work out and brainstorm about what happened?

To develop your company’s own core values and culture (rules of behavior), elaborate on what is important to you and what is important to your employees.

The purpose of this exercise is to align your values with all employees who are seated on your bus!

Harnish says, “It’s the repeating of and living consistent with the firm’s values that’s the most difficult part of the process. A leader must go beyond merely posting the values on the wall and handing out plastic laminated cards. You have to find lots of different ways to deliver the same information – over and over – so that it doesn’t get stale, yet it is reinforced on a daily basis.”

Hence, the daily seven-minute stand up meeting discussed in Resolution 9.

Reinforce your core values in the following processes: Recruitment and selection; orientation; performance appraisal; recognition and reward; meetings and communications; everyday management.

There are wonderful forms available for developing Core Values from Mastering the Rockefeller habits by going to www.gazelles.com.

Every business has just a handful of numbers that must be watched and that spell the difference between high profitability and mediocrity.

Think of the various functions of your business:

• Sales and marketing (weekly or monthly sales, revenue per piece, route labor percentage, sales per hour, etc.

• Production Drycleaning pieces per operator hour (POH), shirt pieces POH, number of stragglers, redo ’s, productive labor percentage, quality control, late order, etc.

• Profitability records (profit management key metrics, balance sheet and cash management, receivables, inventory, etc.)

Assignment 7. Define your key metrics.

A. What are the 5 or 6 key measures or metrics that will point you to high profitability?

1._____________________

2._____________________

3._____________________

4._____________________

5._____________________

6._____________________

7. Where will all these numbers be posted?

8. How will you provide incentives for all your personnel? (Develop a separate action plan.)

B. List five ways to praise and recognize your employees on a weekly basis. (Read 1001 Ways to Reward Employees by Bob Nelson)

1._____________________

2._____________________

3._____________________

4._____________________

5.._____________________

See daily and weekly meetings to reinforce your constant review, Resolution 9.

In every business there are events that change the entire complexity of the business. Jim Collins in Good to Great calls them “facing the brutal facts.”

In my experience (as well as most drycleaners), I had to face these chokepoints:

• We built a route organization from 1947 to about 1956. At that time, shopping centers were exploding, making shopping easier. Routes were out, stores were in. We faced the chokepoint and entered the dry store business.

• From about 1956 to 1970, we built a chain of 35 plants and stores. Polyesters cut our business in half. Our little empire began to collapse.

• From 1970 through 1982, we built a substantial uniform rental business. I also established Apparelmaster with three wonderful partners. We licensed and taught 350 drycleaners how to enter the Uniform Rental Business. It saved me.

What is the moral? Face the chokepoints and develop a strategy to move on.

Assignment 8. What are the chokepoints (problems) to keep you from meeting your objectives?

1._____________________

2._____________________

3._____________________

4._____________________

Develop a daily and weekly meeting agenda.

We have a habit of developing wonderful ideas (e.g. start a route, start a rental service, start thinking about core values to align management goals with employee goals) and in six months many are forgotten.

What a shame! There went another great idea that could have contributed enormously to the success of any company, but it got lost in the hassle of everyday business.

I was first introduced to a daily and weekly agenda by reading Verne Harnish’s Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Here is an idea, if religiously embraced, that would be a daily opportunity to develop your company ’s culture and align employees’ and management’s goals.

Here is how a daily seven-minute meeting works:

In every department, each manager (or the owner) will call a daily seven-minute stand up meeting with all the people who report to him/her. Here is the agenda:

Two to five minutes: What’s up? Specifics about activities, meetings, accomplishments, noteworthy news from customers, re-do analysis, etc.

Two to five minutes: How did we do with our daily key metrics measurements the day before and our goal today?

Two to five minutes: Where are you stuck? Where’s the chokepoint or bottleneck? Who has run into a roadblock? What can be done about it? Bite-sized chunks!

Optional (but important): Review a core ideology.

You can get a print out of the above meeting agenda from www.gazelles.com. A similarly effective weekly meeting agenda is available on the same web site.

The purpose? To drive home all the items on the agenda and make it part of your culture. Here is a place to lay on praise and recognition. Behavior that is rewarded is repeated! Adjourn on time!

Executives at United Parcel run a seven-minute meeting daily. Ritz Carlton runs daily seven-minute huddles from the president of the company with his worldwide manager through world wide conference calls. So do the hotel manager and his reports, the department manager and his reports, and all the way down to the maids. Wow! No wonder they are so effective!

Assignment 9. Schedule meetings.

1. Who will attend?

2. Where will you meet? (For example, aound the spotting board.)

3. What time will it be held?

4. Who will keep the action plan?

5. Will it be a conference call or stand up meeting?

6. Name each manager who will hold seven-minute meetings.

7. Develop a process for the weekly meetings.

Again, Harnish: “The focus of the daily and weekly meetings should be learning and training your managers, a chance for the boss to ‘pass his DNA’ down to the next level. It’s to find out what is working and what is not and to make appropriate adjustments. The key is to keep the company aligned! ”

Every company should offer a brand promise. Here is Tuchman Cleaners’ brand promise or guarantee:

Five shirts laundered free if we neglect to replace a missing or broken button!

That simple statement increased our shirt business 20 percent.

Here is another guarantee we had:

At Tuchman Cleaners, we promise to protect your investment in your clothing. Your clothes will be ready to wear and ready when promised. We keep our promise or you keep your money.

FedEx has developed a system by which you can send anything up to 4 p.m. one day anywhere in the US and it will arrive by 9 a.m. anywhere in the US 99.6 percent of the time — guaranteed.

Can you imagine how complicated it is picking up packages all over the country and loading them in airplanes that fly to five core cities? They are then sorted again and loaded on another airplane that flies to other core cities. They are then sorted, loaded on a truck and delivered to your door — all within the space of about 12 hours!

If FedEx can do the above, don’t you think we can promise a customer that we will replace every missing or broken button or we will launder five shirts free? You should never have to make good on that guarantee. If you follow a simple, institutionalized inspection process, you should never miss a button! Would that guarantee attract an important customer?

These perfect systems, when practiced as a habit, make each executive or manager or employee effective in everything he or she does.

Here are other famous company’s examples:

Schwab Brokerage security guarantee: We want you to have the highest level of confidence when you do business with Schwab. So we offer you this simple guarantee: Schwab will cover 100 percent of any losses in any of your Schwab accounts due to unauthorized activity.

Land’s End: If you’re not satisfied with any item, simply return it to us at any time for an exchange or a refund of its purchase price.

MW Cleaners (formerly Nesbit Cleaners): You’re going to like the way we care for your clothing… or it’s on us. I guarantee it!

Assignment 10. List your brand promises.

There are tons of ideas in the technology arena to increase customer satisfaction and retention, reduce employee turnover, improve productivity, and increase profitability.

Here is a partial list of areas where technology can enhance your company’s performance and effectiveness:

• Improved pressing and cleaning equipment.

• Data mining aids.

• Computerization for all parts of your business.

• Automated assembly and bagging systems.

There are many others too numerous to mention. Attend your state and national shows for up-to-the minute ideas.

Never have a “NIH” mindset (not invented here) when it comes to technology or new processes and systems. Always be open to what other folks (both in and out of our industry) are doing.

Assignment 11. What new technology can you use to achieve your objectives?

It has been said many times: The key to profitability and growth is customer satisfaction. The key to customer satisfaction is employee satisfaction.

As I mentioned previously, according to the book First Break all the Rules, employees quit because they can’t get along with the boss or their fellow employees, and because their values differ.

Does that happen in your company? Employee turnover is costlier than you think!

Ninety-two percent of managers told Rasmussen Reports that they were doing an “excellent” or “good” job, said Andrea Coombes in Marketwatch.com, but only 67 percent of their subordinates agreed. “Workers are not giving managers a resounding thumbs-down, but the difference in how managers rate themselves versus how workers rate them signals a problem. ”

If you are not getting feedback from your employees on how well you are doing, from where else do you get it?

Peter Drucker said, “Companies should treat employees like their most valuable resources, including pushing decision-making down to the lowest levels. ”

In the newsletter Workforce Management, it was stated, “Employees who are engaged with their work and satisfied with their company can help organizations move quickly, keep customers satisfied, and build and keep competitive advantage. ” A team [from CSRs to the bagger] that operates like a well-oiled machine can be a company ’s most valuable asset in a crowded marketplace.

“But how do you know how your employees feel about the company, their manager and their work? And how often do you update this knowledge? While many of us can recognize poor morale when we see it, by the time morale problems have visible effects it may be too late to do much about them.

“Companies need an early warning system to help them see when morale might be flagging and when employees are dissatisfied with some aspect of their work life. ”

The purpose of the survey is to determine whether your employees are engaged or stuck, whether they have the tools to do their jobs, and whether they are being creatively managed to bring out the best of their ability. Small morale problems, left unchecked can grow into major issues.

I have developed an employee survey to determine whether my clients’ employees have the tools to do their jobs, and whether they are being managed to perform to the best of their abilities.

Here is what you will learn from my employee survey that I adapted from First, Break All the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman:

• Do they know what is expected of them?

• Do they have the proper equipment to do their jobs?

• Are they motivated to do what is required of them?

• Are they receiving appropriate training?

• Are they receiving recognition or praise at work?

• Are they committed to doing quality work?

• Do they perceive that their co-workers are doing quality work?

• Does the mission or purpose of their organization make them feel their jobs are important?

• Can you anticipate turnover?

• Is the company’s training program helping them fulfill their potential?

• Have they had opportunities to learn and grow over the past year?

• Are the manager and supervisors truly competent?

This survey will develop a benchmark for managerial improvement.

This survey is one of the best tools I have ever seen to help managers and owners manage the personnel entrusted to them. The survey strongly suggests that turnover and dissatisfaction are engendered by an employee ’s immediate supervisor or manager!

E-mail me at sidtuch@comcast.net if you want more detailed information.

Assignment 12. Employee feedback.

How will you receive feedback from your employees to judge the effectiveness of your managers?

What is your plan to constantly upgrade your managers and your own management capabilities to improve communication with the personnel entrusted to you?

The purpose of this article is to provide you with a step-by-step process to take you where you want to go. Planning your vision, identifying all the steps along the way and managing a workforce is, to say the least, exceedingly difficult. But it is a process. If the process isn ’t working, change it, delete it, but for heaven’s sake, make it effective.

We don’t live in a perfect world. Your job is to make the most out of what you have. I hope the above resolutions will make your journey a little easier, your employees more loyal and your company more profitable.

Here’s a last word from First, Break All the Rules: “Everywhere employees are demanding more of their work. With the breakdown of other sources of community, employees are looking more and more to their workplace to provide them with a sense of meaning and identity. They want to be recognized as individuals. They want a chance to express themselves and to gain meaningful prestige for that environment where each person comes to know his or her strengths and expresses them productively. ”

We all have great expectations. After living a full life, let me tell you mine. To me, happiness involves this: Getting up in the morning energized by what the day has in store. If you don ’t get out of bed in the morning energized, then find out why. Go back to Resolution 8 and find out the chokepoints that are making you have anxieties. Life is too short to live with constant stress — or bad vibrations. Get professional help if you have to, but overcome whatever it is that keeps you from jumping out of bed in the morning and rejoicing in the day.

What a challenge driving your business bus represents. Sometimes it can be uncomfortably frustrating. Mostly it should be exhilarating. I hope this road map offers you the passion to lead your bus to a successful destination!