How does one manage the company/business/dept/section during a recession?
The environment we are in now, there is a global slowdown of trade, activity, and business. Customers are cutting back because their customers are cutting back. One end of the chain is consumer spending - if people don't spend, business cannot sell. It then affects the entire supply chain.
We've also heard governments is always aiming to maintain a balance between inflation and deflation. If price goes up too fast, then spending power is reduced - people will spend less as a result and economic activity will suffer. Deflation can happen when there is financial crisis like what is happening now - economic activity goes down because banks are not lending to businesses. Banks are not lending because there is no confidence that they will be paid back. It's actually a confidence issue. When we hear credit freeze, it means banks are not lending, i.e. credit is not flowing. Governments like the US is trying to restore confidence in the banking system but is facing many challenges. Deflation as I understand, even if price is low and is lowered, consumer spending does not increase because consumers are not confident of spending when the economy is not in a good shape.
Anyway, I digress into the economics of the slowdown...
I read something useful on how one can look at managing the downturn - the source comes from market research firm Frost and Sullivan. SMEs are mentioned as a specific target on how to manage during the downturn but I think it's relevant to MNCs or any big local companies as well.
If you are an organisational leader, what do you do in this environment? If you are a department head or section head, what do you do? If you are a small business owner what do you do?
Here's a useful model to look at how to manage during a downturn.
1. Short term (~1 year)
Maintain your key people (keep their talent in place)
Look at how to manage cash and keep costs down
2. Medium term (perhaps 1 year+ onwards)
Focus on improving efficiency (improve productivity)
Develop better processes so that you can still deliver to the end user
3. Long term (2/3 years onwards)
Have a view of the future - keep on investing for the upturn when it comes.
Identify key areas to invest in to position oneself for the upturn
For the leader, manager or anyone who leads a team - provide strong leadership, positivity and the right mindset for the crisis.
Do not cut down on everything - keep investing in critical investments because they will take you to the next level when the recession ends.
Further reflections on the short-term strategy
It's important to keep the talent. If you are the employee, recognise this - prove to the company, your leader that you are a valuable talent to the company. Take the initiative to come up with ideas or suggestions on how to improve the business, reduce costs (e.g. cutting down on bureaucractic processes), attract more customers, sell more to existing customers, etc.
Thoughts? Comments? I'd love to hear from you.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Branding, not size is key to attracting talent
A survey conducted by Singapore National Employer's Federation and a strategic consultancy, StrategiCom found that brand is more important that company size in attracting talent.
It says SMEs (small medium enterprises) must focus not on raising salary offers, but on building a forward looking brand to attract and retain quality staff. This would seem sensible for SMEs who often cannot compete with bigger MNCs in terms of salary offers.
How does a company build it's brand? This is not product branding but the branding of the company and how it treats its employees. The areas to focus on are:
1. Build on the values of recognition and appreciation of employee's work
2. Opportunity of career progression
3. Training & development
Identify what is unique about what you can offer to potential employees that differentiate you from the competitor. For example, an entrepreutrial culture, access to top management and an innovative approach. And then, follow up by communicating it CONSISTENTLY. Communicating the employee value proposition consistently is what I think companies fail to do well, even for the larger companies. Consistently means the managers, the policies and benefits are all aligned and do not contradict each other.
If SMEs are serious about attracting and retaining talent, what will work for them is to find out what is unique about the company and the communicate it consistently. Focusing on employee recognition, opportunity for career progression, training and development are however, the bare minimum SME must do because almost all the firms do this (especially even so for bigger companies that have more resources than SMEs to devote to such initiatives)
What are your thoughts?
It says SMEs (small medium enterprises) must focus not on raising salary offers, but on building a forward looking brand to attract and retain quality staff. This would seem sensible for SMEs who often cannot compete with bigger MNCs in terms of salary offers.
How does a company build it's brand? This is not product branding but the branding of the company and how it treats its employees. The areas to focus on are:
1. Build on the values of recognition and appreciation of employee's work
2. Opportunity of career progression
3. Training & development
Identify what is unique about what you can offer to potential employees that differentiate you from the competitor. For example, an entrepreutrial culture, access to top management and an innovative approach. And then, follow up by communicating it CONSISTENTLY. Communicating the employee value proposition consistently is what I think companies fail to do well, even for the larger companies. Consistently means the managers, the policies and benefits are all aligned and do not contradict each other.
If SMEs are serious about attracting and retaining talent, what will work for them is to find out what is unique about the company and the communicate it consistently. Focusing on employee recognition, opportunity for career progression, training and development are however, the bare minimum SME must do because almost all the firms do this (especially even so for bigger companies that have more resources than SMEs to devote to such initiatives)
What are your thoughts?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
What matters to you at work? What matters to you about your family? What matters to you about your community?
What matters to you at work? What matters to you about your family? What matters to you about your community? The list can go on and on. What matters to you about your marriage? What matters to you about your singlehood? What matters to you about your relationships with friends? What matters to you in life?
Ponder on that for a moment and see what you come up with....
When I reflected on these questions, I came to realise that the stories and reflections web site was created out of values which are personal to me, values about personal growth, expressing myself authentically, learning through stories and reflections and connecting people so that they can help and support each other through their experiences and/or their knowledge. The primary objective of the site was not about making money. It's a secondary or tertiary objective, if that should ever happen. The focus is on personal expression and community building for mutual support. If people find it interesting, thought provoking and useful, they will come back and tell others about it. They may show their appreciation by giving back to the community either by offering their expertise, experience or supporting the advertising or products/services on the site. The site will be able to sustain itself and grow through these contributions, allowing more people to connect and reap the benefits of the knowledge and social connections.
Further reflections...
The society we live in today has by and large adopted a utility mindset. Instrumental values (e.g. money, materialism, practicality, efficiency) are what is prized and rewarded. Self-interest which is a major driving force of the economist mindset has overwhelmed the culture we live in. What do I get in return for doing something drives the thinking and decision making, both at an individual level, organisation and societal level. What is the cost and what is the benefit of doing something? Is the potential return worth the cost that we are going to spend on it?
Compare the list you came up with earlier with the instrumental values that is so prevalent today? Is there a gap? Is there any disconnect?
Did you come up with values like personal growth, beauty, appreciating art, learning for the sake of learning, not just for the sake of a future benefit, love, caring for other people, creating a better working place, community or organisation?
I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts or comments...
Ponder on that for a moment and see what you come up with....
When I reflected on these questions, I came to realise that the stories and reflections web site was created out of values which are personal to me, values about personal growth, expressing myself authentically, learning through stories and reflections and connecting people so that they can help and support each other through their experiences and/or their knowledge. The primary objective of the site was not about making money. It's a secondary or tertiary objective, if that should ever happen. The focus is on personal expression and community building for mutual support. If people find it interesting, thought provoking and useful, they will come back and tell others about it. They may show their appreciation by giving back to the community either by offering their expertise, experience or supporting the advertising or products/services on the site. The site will be able to sustain itself and grow through these contributions, allowing more people to connect and reap the benefits of the knowledge and social connections.
Further reflections...
The society we live in today has by and large adopted a utility mindset. Instrumental values (e.g. money, materialism, practicality, efficiency) are what is prized and rewarded. Self-interest which is a major driving force of the economist mindset has overwhelmed the culture we live in. What do I get in return for doing something drives the thinking and decision making, both at an individual level, organisation and societal level. What is the cost and what is the benefit of doing something? Is the potential return worth the cost that we are going to spend on it?
Compare the list you came up with earlier with the instrumental values that is so prevalent today? Is there a gap? Is there any disconnect?
Did you come up with values like personal growth, beauty, appreciating art, learning for the sake of learning, not just for the sake of a future benefit, love, caring for other people, creating a better working place, community or organisation?
I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts or comments...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
When you were young what did you like to do?
When I was young, I listened to the radio...
Waitin’ for my favorite songs
When they played I’d sing along...
It made me smile
Do you recognise the lyrics and tune of the song? Can you hear it in your head?
I grew up listening to that song by Karen Carpenter. Hearing the tune in my head now transported me back in time, when life was carefree and I was idealistic about the world.
To me that song symbolised the notion of idealism.
By the time I entered junior college, I still had the idealism in me. I still had strong sense of idealism in my thinking - the essays I wrote in school were about how I saw the world, what it could be, what I would do to help make it what it could be, that I would do things my way even if it is hard and it may take me longer. Then I went into university and my world changed...
I joined the engineering faculty and it was tough from day one. I feel the tremendous quantity of work, the long lecture and tutorial hours every week and felt worn out by the end of every week. There were many assignments and projects to be completed in tight deadlines. I felt rather overwhelmed. Despite this I persevered but you know what, I lost quite a bit of my idealism in university in that course that I undertook. Slowly but surely I began to adopt the engineering mindset - be practical, be efficient. I no longer could afford to do things my way or spend too much time reflecting and letting myself come to my own conclusion or solution because of the huge number of assignments and tight deadlines for them. Engineering trained me to be analytical and to be comfortable in analysing problems and issues and for that I am grateful.
Idealism is one of three qualities that is required of us if we are to focus on what matters. The other two is intimacy and depth (according to Peter Block, an author whose work I really enjoy reading because he asks the difficult questions that provokes deep and reflective thinking...)
Intimacy means personal interaction, face to face time, allowing people to people engagement. Technology increases our isolation yet at the same time promises to overcome it. Peter Block tells of the story of his mother where she used to keep the TV on all the time to try to overcome her loneliness. It didn't. It only made enough noise so that she did not have to really make contact with others who might have offered some genuine comfort.
Depth means going deeper to reflect, instead of going faster. The society now emphasises speed and rewards it. How fast can you go? How efficient can you be? We prefer actions and answers. You hear it all the time in the working place:
We want to have a bias for action
Talk is cheap. Action speaks louder than words
Those who can do, do. Those who can't teach.
I'm not condemning the need to be efficient or the need to take action. Those are needed when it is time to act but before that, we should spend enough time thinking and reflecting before we take the leap. It is a balancing act and the balance is heavily tilted in favour of action in the prevailing culture. Not all things require the depth of reflection. Things that matter to us does. If we want to act on what matters to us, we need to shift our consciousness about pace. If we do not have time to do something, it is a sign that it does not matter. Values that we hold dear will wilt under the pressure of time. It is hard to imagine instant trust, instant justice, instant respect, instant high performing teams, instant reconciliation. If we yield to the temptation of speed, we short circuit our values. This leads to personal disappointment and loss of faith in our attempt to bring our strategies and models into the world...
What are your thoughts? Pls share your comments
Waitin’ for my favorite songs
When they played I’d sing along...
It made me smile
Do you recognise the lyrics and tune of the song? Can you hear it in your head?
I grew up listening to that song by Karen Carpenter. Hearing the tune in my head now transported me back in time, when life was carefree and I was idealistic about the world.
To me that song symbolised the notion of idealism.
By the time I entered junior college, I still had the idealism in me. I still had strong sense of idealism in my thinking - the essays I wrote in school were about how I saw the world, what it could be, what I would do to help make it what it could be, that I would do things my way even if it is hard and it may take me longer. Then I went into university and my world changed...
I joined the engineering faculty and it was tough from day one. I feel the tremendous quantity of work, the long lecture and tutorial hours every week and felt worn out by the end of every week. There were many assignments and projects to be completed in tight deadlines. I felt rather overwhelmed. Despite this I persevered but you know what, I lost quite a bit of my idealism in university in that course that I undertook. Slowly but surely I began to adopt the engineering mindset - be practical, be efficient. I no longer could afford to do things my way or spend too much time reflecting and letting myself come to my own conclusion or solution because of the huge number of assignments and tight deadlines for them. Engineering trained me to be analytical and to be comfortable in analysing problems and issues and for that I am grateful.
Idealism is one of three qualities that is required of us if we are to focus on what matters. The other two is intimacy and depth (according to Peter Block, an author whose work I really enjoy reading because he asks the difficult questions that provokes deep and reflective thinking...)
Intimacy means personal interaction, face to face time, allowing people to people engagement. Technology increases our isolation yet at the same time promises to overcome it. Peter Block tells of the story of his mother where she used to keep the TV on all the time to try to overcome her loneliness. It didn't. It only made enough noise so that she did not have to really make contact with others who might have offered some genuine comfort.
Depth means going deeper to reflect, instead of going faster. The society now emphasises speed and rewards it. How fast can you go? How efficient can you be? We prefer actions and answers. You hear it all the time in the working place:
We want to have a bias for action
Talk is cheap. Action speaks louder than words
Those who can do, do. Those who can't teach.
I'm not condemning the need to be efficient or the need to take action. Those are needed when it is time to act but before that, we should spend enough time thinking and reflecting before we take the leap. It is a balancing act and the balance is heavily tilted in favour of action in the prevailing culture. Not all things require the depth of reflection. Things that matter to us does. If we want to act on what matters to us, we need to shift our consciousness about pace. If we do not have time to do something, it is a sign that it does not matter. Values that we hold dear will wilt under the pressure of time. It is hard to imagine instant trust, instant justice, instant respect, instant high performing teams, instant reconciliation. If we yield to the temptation of speed, we short circuit our values. This leads to personal disappointment and loss of faith in our attempt to bring our strategies and models into the world...
What are your thoughts? Pls share your comments
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