Month: June 2012

Machine-driven productivity enhancements may have received a lot of attention in the past, but it is becoming clear that in the modern economy, a company’s capacity for innovation is a major factor in determining its ability to succeed.

Creativity remains a distinctly human characteristic and it is essential for corporations to focus on building a skilled workforce. If a business is able to establish itself as a leader in talent development, it will be able to reap significant benefits over the long run.

Fortunately, any company can find opportunities to focus on employee development, sometimes in unexpected situations. For instance, a business may find that an important project is becoming increasingly complex, sprawling into specific fields that exceed the abilities of the company’s accounting staff.

In this scenario, rather than beginning a new financial professional search and having to hire a new long-term worker, it can create significant value for your company to work with an interim investment analyst instead. This will allow your company to get past a period of strain while your current staff members will be able to benefit from working with a knowledgeable professional in the field.

Oftentimes, working with a firm that offers financial project consulting services can help a business address a short-term need while also giving the company’s core staff members experience with best practices in a particular field and preparing them for long-term skill development.

Whenever possible, the best strategy for businesses is to plan ahead. By forecasting their future needs for skilled individuals in various fields, a company can start taking proactive steps in the present to ensure that a future lapse in talent availability will not cause a serious disruption in the company’s operations.

There are times when a business leader has no choice but to deliver ostensibly “bad” news to clients, but there is often a way to present the information in a way that actually makes them more appreciative of the service they are receiving. This may seem counterintuitive, but consider an example.

Let’s say your company was aiding another corporation in the setup of a new subsidiary overseas and, after the fact, your financial staff determines that you could have helped the client save money by avoiding specific tax liabilities. You may be nervous about telling the client that you missed an opportunity to improve their bottom line. But, if you explain to them that you are working with an international tax consultant to implement new review standards to prevent such oversights in the future, it shows them that you are a valuable partner who is committed to providing quality service.

For another example, imagine a situation where your company’s leadership identifies fraud or other wrongdoing in its accounting department. There may be an impulse to panic, deal with the situation as quietly as possible and conceal the whole incident to avert a scandal.

Many corporations and politicians have followed this path, only to find that when the information inevitably came out anyway, their concealment of the truth caused them to look complicit in the criminal activity and further diminished their reputation.

The best thing a company can do when it uncovers improper practices in its operations is to be honest and upfront with clients and business partners and put new safeguards into place to prevent similar activities from taking place in the future.

If your business announces that it has terminated the corrupt individuals and will work with professional recruiters to thoroughly vet candidates when recruiting accountants in the future, this will show your associates that you value integrity and are an earnest business partner.

At the foundation of any successful business, you are bound to find a certain level of established trust. This goodwill must be extended within the workplace as well as between the company and its network of suppliers, clients and partners.

John Mackey, CEO of grocery retailer Whole Foods, asserts that he can tell within five minutes of walking into one of the company’s stores whether or not there is a high level of trust in the operation. He says all business leaders should focus on developing the ability to instinctively feel when an organization is plagued by demoralized attitudes and behavior.

Once bad experiences cause potential partners or clients to lose faith in your company, it can be very difficult to rebuild a sense of trust.

Failing to follow through on tasks or showing up to meetings unprepared are examples of stops on the short path to total distrust. On the other hand, taking every challenge seriously and treating all groups and individuals with respect will give you a much better chance of fostering a sense of trust around your business.

For instance, if an important client is concerned that your latest business proposals may contain hidden tax liabilities, bringing in an international tax consultant to go over the situation in detail will show the client that you take the situation seriously and place a high value on their business, giving them every reason to trust you and your company.

In an article for Inc. Magazine, entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan urged business leaders to think of trust as an investment. Although it may not have a specific rate of return, you definitely won’t get any back if you never put any in.

Business leaders in the modern economy are presented with countless opportunities to improve workplace collaboration every day. Even small initiatives can have a significant impact on a corporate staff’s ability to effectively cooperate to achieve organizational goals.

Launching brand new programs specifically focused on improving collaboration may have a certain appeal, as they create the image that something is happening immediately. However, many of the best avenues for increasing cohesion can include innovations to existing processes.

For instance, consider the auditing process. Every company must be proactive in ensuring that its business is conducted in accordance with corporate policies and governmental regulations. However, even routine audits can often become stressful events. Working with an internal audit consultant can aid a company in ensuring that it maintains consistency and integrity in its auditing practices, helping minimize the strain placed on employees while guaranteeing that all audits will be conducted in a comprehensive manner.

There are many other types of initiatives that can lead to a significant increase in the company’s overall level of cohesion. Of course, the recruitment process should be an important area of focus for any company seeking to improve the collaboration between its staff members.

Working with professional recruiters can help business leaders build a staff that is simultaneously diverse and cohesive. Although close cooperation is critical for effective administration, maintaining a level of diversity is also important.

Attempting to build a company based on a homogeneous staff of like-minded workers can cause the development of the dreaded situation known as “groupthink,” in which workers forego introducing fresh ideas or fail to critically analyze those offered by colleagues. If conformity becomes a group’s main goal, outdated or incorrect ideas can come to dominate its thinking, preventing their organization from adapting to the constantly shifting economic landscape.

The mixing of different ideas from free-thinking individuals is essential for the introduction of innovations and working with professional recruiters can help your company recruit bold innovators who are also team players.

In today’s struggling economy, employees may be reluctant to admit that they are feeling stressed or overwhelmed by their workload. They may be afraid to complain, wishing to avoid being labeled as having a bad attitude.

However, once work-related stressors start to degrade the quality of an individual’s personal life, it is only a matter of time before their performance in the office starts to decline as well. It is important for a company’s executive leadership to acknowledge the importance of maintaining employee morale and consider the impact of their actions, especially at critical moments when worker stress is running high.

In the business world, there are many situations that can emerge unexpectedly and place tremendous pressure on a specific group of employees.

For instance, the departure of several key staff members from a particular department may leave the remaining workers feeling overwhelmed by their suddenly expanded responsibilities, especially if they hold stressful jobs in finance. If the word comes down from corporate leadership that everyone just has to cope with working longer hours, employee morale will sink like a stone.

However, if executives instead offer assurances to their workers that they understand the stress that has been placed on everyone and they will be bringing in a financial project consulting team to help manage the current workload while the company is searching for new staff – this is sure to invite a more positive reception.

To further bolster the morale of an understaffed department, management may want to let employees know that it is taking steps to expedite the process of recruiting new people by working with a firm of professional recruiters. Workers will be happy to hear that corporate leadership is on top of the situation and should be encouraged to struggle through the period of difficulty with their heads held high.

In a recent article for Fortune Magazine, columnist Anne Fisher asserted that 40 percent of executives who change jobs or receive a promotion wind up failing in their new role and either being dismissed or quitting within the first 18 months. According to executive coach George Bradt, taking the time to plan for success before your official first day can make a critical difference.

“The best way to build your team, take charge, and get great results fast is to create time by starting earlier than anyone thought you would,” he says. “This one idea can make or break a new leader’s transition.”

The most important aspect of establishing yourself in a new position is to show that you have a plan. For instance, if the organization’s finances are in disarray, you may want to bring in an internal audit consultant to show that you are serious about putting the business’s fiscal house in order. Small actions like this can help you take control and start making progress right away, which can be important.

Bradt asserts that many new executives eventually realize that there were already organizational or market forces working against them before they started. Getting going before your position officially begins can help you gain insight into your new company’s or department’s situation as well as garner the respect of your new colleagues.

You should arrange to meet, even informally, with all of the people who will affect your ability to succeed. These include your direct reports, critical support staff and other individuals in leadership roles. It is important to strike a balance between introducing yourself as a person and establishing yourself as an authority.

However, leaders who clearly show that they have a positive attitude and a plan for success should be able to win over even the office cynics. There are countless actions that a newly made executive can take to hit the ground running, but anyone with the willpower to make a plan and put it in action can expect to experience success.

A solid education is an important aspect of any executive’s background. It forms a key part of the foundation that a successful career is built on. However, there are some aspects of the school experience that can, unfortunately, cause certain bad habits to become entrenched in graduates’ minds.

One of the most readily apparent differences between the school and work worlds is that school is an environment where you expect to be micromanaged and the path to success lies in doing exactly what you are told, when and how you are told to do it. When you’re working at a private business, achieving success requires creativity. As was recently discussed on this blog, hiring game-changing innovators should be a major goal for all forward-thinking organizations.

Attaining success in business also requires collaboration. It may be difficult for some to shake the lingering feeling that it is somehow “cheating” to take outside help, but this is actually often a critical part of doing business.

For instance, a company may be actively recruiting accountants, but find itself temporarily short-handed at a critical moment. Rather than hiring the first applicant who stumbles in for an interview or re-assigning janitors to jobs in finance, the best option for a business may be to rely on an outside service that offers financial project consulting. This allows the company to maintain uninterrupted operations while it looks for high-caliber individuals to join its financial team on a permanent basis.

In the same vein, a business may find that it is in its best interest to allow an outside firm of professional recruiters to conduct an important executive or financial professional search. In school, you learned to make friends and get along with those around you. But, in business, you have to learn how to hire well-rounded workers and command the respect of your colleagues.

The staff at recruitment firms have sufficient experience to see past a candidate’s resume and read between the lines to see how they would fit in a particular position at a specific organization. Professional recruiters work full-time, focused solely on finding the right person for the open job at your company.