Overcoming 2014 Challenges, Moving into 2015

 

We started the year off strong with our Round Table Meetings focused on the topic: “Overcoming 2014 Challenges, Moving into 2015”. Below are the notes from our area meetings. If you’d like to get plugged into a group, contact us today to get signed up for February!

Topic:  Overcoming 2014 Challenges, Moving into 2015

Kalamazoo – Thursday, January 8, 2015

Challenge:

• Culture
• Competition
• Talent – not knowing what you have in an employee until they are in the game.
• Skill Sets
• Training
• Secession planning
• Management changes

Solution:

• Leadership Development program
• Starting with the top down
• Bringing in consultants
• Ramp up “If you know what you are doing wrong, you can fix it.”
• Educate and Train
• Talent
• Not just interview but check references
• Get with references on some occasions
• Social Style Profile – D.I.S.K.
• Slow to hire
• Train with an experienced mentor
• Determine if they have management and execution skills
• Check social media
• Competition
• Continue to progressively grow
• Reinvest in Organization, Marketing and Expansion
• Differentiate – How do we compete? Why should a company work with us vs. another company?  What can we bring to the table our competition can’t or isn’t?
• Ask companies if it is about the price or it is about qualifications and what we can do for them.  Looking for long-term partnership in business.
• Profiling – Where can you best serve them?
• Culture
• Continue to propagate the new hires.
• Fight for the finances it takes to promote culture.  It is worth it.
• Spend the time it takes
• Keep the culture alive and enforce it.
• Fire those that don’t fit your culture.

Takeaway:

• Fighting for Culture
• Competition
• Secession planning
• Our Companies Culture needs to change, Increase dynamics.
• Keep being creative.
• The larger we get, the more people we need, the more important culture is.
• (T+F) x I=G   (Talent + Fit) x Investment = Growth

Grand Rapids – Tuesday, January 9, 2015

Key Challenges:

• Instilling change that lasts requires a shifting of the value system for our staff and stakeholders.
• Just “checking off the box” to say we addressed the need to change ultimately can make that change even more challenging to achieve.
• We have fear of failure.
• We must be identifying the correct target (audience) for the changes we desire, lest our energy and effort is worse than wasted.
• People frequently don’t want to accept the truth. Denial is easy, popular, rampant and evil.
• Our own greed and selfish desires are the root causes (character flaws) of the fights and quarrels that occur among us.
• American society is steeped in many non-Biblical practices of social inequalities, and the gaps are widening.

Key Solutions:

• Pour our energy and resources into the right problem at the right point of entry.
• When we want to change the culture we must also realign the expectations.
• Fears of failure should be redefined as being opportunities for growth.
• Collaborative solutions reduce individual investments, increase mutually shared benefits, and change multiple cultures.
• E-commerce is both a challenge and a solution.
• A reactive solution reduces the chances for successfulness; a proactive solution increases the chances for successfulness.

Key Takeaways:

• Bold changes require making bold investments.
• Timing always matters. All things in God’s time work out work to his glory. All things in our time fail, eventually.
• The process of growth always produces pains and struggles.  When those pains and struggles are experienced in proper perspective they can yield amazing growth.
• Be self-aware of the unintended consequences of the authoritative power that we may be wielding over others.
• To break a cycle is incredibly challenging, but to achieve that goal instills permanent change.
• A healthy loving family is the core solution to a healthy loving community, which is the core solution to a healthy loving society.

Grand Rapids – Thursday, January 13, 2015

Challenge:

• Changing economy for 2015 “Don’t worry Be Happy”
• Be prepared to pay your people more (especially the good / top performers)
• Managing the business flow / cycles
• Operational issues
• Relevancy (focusing on the right stuff)
• Managing metrics vs. soft measures (which is more important / most relevant)
• Talent gap
• Balance and Priorities
• Resource allocation
• Priorities (the right ones)
• Clarity and focus
• Communication
• Right person / proper assessments
• Budget battles
• Technology changes
• Problem identification
• Balance
• Evaluating / celebrating success

Solution:

• Narrow your focus (measure / focus on the key few)
• Metrics – measure what we have done and need to do
• Re-doing the roadmap
• Decide and act
• Justify bringing in the proper resources
• Growth through innovation
• More time to think / build into your calendar or planner
• Prayer / fasting / listen to the Lord

Takeaway:

• Act with purpose
• Act with passion
• Just Act

Holland – Thursday, January 8, 2015

Challenge:

• Move towards strategic and move from day to day
• Balancing the stewardship of two (2) businesses
• Change in position and responsibility
• Business cycle issues
• Production / Through put issues
• Talent development under 25% growth
• Succession planning / identification of the next generation of leaders
• Balancing both internal and external issues
• Hiring people in “tough” times / hiring people in “ good” times
• Staffing / personnel issues

Solution:

• Hire right
• Identify the five (5) things you need to focus on
• Work the plan
• Measure the plan / progress
• Search and explore opportunities and partnerships
• Quarterly strengths and weaknesses review
• Getting to know yourself first (a life plan)
• Don’t react too quick
• Live more daily
• Identify leaders and coach them
• Engage, engage, engage

Takeaway:

• Develop the plan and measure results
• Create some form of accountability
• Learn from 2014, don’t focus on 2014
• New Year, new start, new opportunities

Kalamazoo – Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Challenge:

• “Each year we have the same basic challenges with just a different flavor.”
• Regulatory Overreach
• With over 30 thousand new regulations this last year it is hard to keep up.
• Some regulations contradict each other.
• Companies can get a violation, fine and then have to fight with legal defense which is costly.
• Customer-“It used to be you dealt directly with the owner; now you have middle men making it more difficult to determine what the customer wants.”
• Growth
• Lack of Leadership
• Culture
• Personnel Changes
• Piracy of high “C’s”

Solution:

• Growth and Lack of Leadership
• Leadership Development Program
• Get consultants
• Get your team to understand the business and how it works.
• Training specifically for the job
• Good leaders know how to handle success.  Don’t get beyond what you can do.  Be ok with saying no.
• Managed guidance
• Provide the tools
• Piracy of the High “C’s”
• Take care of your people.
• Treat them appropriately with fair compensation.
• Stay close enough so they succeed – that is a balance.
• Help them feel confident about their ability with their job.
• Make sure they have the right career path for them.
• Customer
• Constant changes: be aware and make the appropriate adjustments.
• Learn the middle man/woman and owners to determine what they want.
• Regulatory Over Reach
• Be informed.
• Pray
• Personnel Changes
• Don’t assume the employee understands and is engaged.
• Come along side, but don’t hover.
• Understand their strengths and weaknesses.
• Let them know you are committed to their success.
• Culture
• Make it a great place to work.
• “If the offense is good, you don’t have to worry about the defense.”
• Let your people know to ask for help and that you are happy to give it to them.
• Cultivate a growing and learning environment.
• Make sure everyone is on the same page.

Takeaway: What are you going to do?  How are you going to fix it?

• Leadership Development Program
• Have a good vision, good goals and good leadership team.
• Continue to develop the leadership team.
• Leadership challenge: Take 6 or 8 people that are key and embrace them like Jesus embraced his disciples.  Impact those key people so they are enthusiastic and engaged.
• Meet the challenges and enjoy the journey.
• Be sensitive to what is going on around you.
• Be engaged with balance.
• Model physically how to handle things.
• Have sensitivity to intervene with the correct message at the right time.
• Remember how long it took us to learn what we know.  Don’t take that for granted or expect that too soon from others. Have the right perspective.
• Build the team.