Dallas McMurtrie

Dallas McMurtrie
Senior Tax Manager
Deloitte & Touche LLP
Langley, B.C.

Profile
Dallas is a Senior Manager for the Deloitte & Touche tax practice in Langley. He has over 10 years experience in public practice serving clients in the tax services area. His experience includes advising clients on international tax structures, mergers and acquisitions, tax audits, and personal tax planning.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Dallas was with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce serving in one of its treasury departments.
Dallas’ experience includes:

• Assisting foreign companies to acquire or dispose of Canadian interests.\
• Developing repatriation and global income tax strategies to reduce effective income tax rates.
• Advising clients on their dealings with the Canada Revenue Agency during tax audits.

His clients include several of the largest public and private corporations in British Columbia.

Professional Memberships

• Certified General Accountants of British Columbia
• Canadian Tax Foundation

Industry Focus
Consumer Business and Technology

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Grant Wallace

Grant Wallace
Vice President, CopperLion Capital
Vancouver

Grant is a founding member of the management team of CopperLion Capital and is active in the transaction execution, financial valuation, due diligence and administrative aspects of the fund.

Grant has significant experience in M&A and financing transactions, as well as business valuation.

Grant previously worked as Director, Corporate Finance & Treasury at Corix Group, a $300 million infrastructure systems company, where he was involved in corporate development including acquisition transaction structuring and due diligence. He was also responsible for corporate modeling and valuation, treasury services and investor relations.

Grant also spent seven years at Ernst & Young Orenda Corporate Finance in Vancouver and Toronto. At Ernst & Young Orenda he advised on over 30 successful acquisition, divestiture, financing, valuation and restructuring engagements.

Grant is a CFA Charterholder and a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV). He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Queen’s University.

CopperLion Capital Website

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Jeremy South

Jeremy South
Partner, Mergers and Acquisitions
Deloitte & Touche LLP
Vancouver

Jeremy is a Partner leading the Corporate Finance and Transaction Services practice for Deloitte, based in Vancouver.

Jeremy specializes in the delivery of strategic advice to clients and also lead manages transaction execution.

Jeremy has over 20 years of financial, investment banking and private equity experience in North America, Europe and Australia.

He has experience across a wide range of industries but he has recent experience in the energy, technology, manufacturing, consumer products, leisure and service sectors. Jeremy has held senior positions with major investment banking firms in Europe including NatWest Markets, Alex. Brown and Deutsche Bank and was responsible for transactions which raised over $3bn in investment capital. He has participated in large scale global financings of debt and equity.

He recently joined Deloitte from Second City Capital Partners, a leading North American private equity fund, where he was Managing Partner. Second City Capital Partners is a leading independent provider of innovative, tailored financial solutions to mid-market companies in North America. He has worked with growth companies across North America since 2000.

Mr. South is a graduate of Monash University in Australia with a degree in Economics and holds a Chartered Accountant designation.

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Karen A.R Dickson

Karen A.R Dickson,
Partner
Miller Thompson LLP
Vancouver

As a member of the firm’s Corporate and Commercial practice groups, Karen provides legal advice to clients in the areas of business law and finance.

In particular, Karen’s work focuses on banking law, acting for a major Canadian Bank for automotive and asset-based financing. In addition, she has extensive experience acting for clients in the sale or acquisition of shares or assets, security over personal property, general business contracts, corporate re-organizations and shareholders’ agreements.

Karen has lectured for Continuing Legal Education on several aspects of the Personal Property Security Act. She has also been a guest lecturer for the Professional Legal Training Course program on Buying and Selling a Business, Debtor-Creditor Relations, Incorporations and the Personal Property Security Act.

Karen has been involved in the community for the past 25 years. She has served as a director of Neighbourhood House, Touchstone Theatre, Anna Wyman Dance Theatre, and The Vancouver Playhouse. Most recently, she served as a governor on the board of Vancouver Community College, from February 2002 until July 2005, and as Chair of the Governance Committee for the Board.

Karen is committed to providing excellent legal services to all her clients.
Education

• University of British Columbia (LL.B., 1981)
• University of British Columbia (B.Ed., 1977)

Affiliations

Member, Canadian Bar Association, Business Law Section and Banking Section

Miller Thompson web site

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Ken Burnett

Kenneth N. Burnett
Partner
Miller Thompson LLP
Vancouver

Ken Burnett is a senior partner of the firm and offers a broad range of advice to clients in the areas of corporate, commercial and general business law.

Over the years, Mr. Burnett has provided strategic advice on a number of major commercial transactions, including those relating to aviation matters, joint venture agreements, commercial financing, taxation, transportation, and wills and estate planning. He also advises foreign investors on ownership vehicles for investment in Canada, and has extensive experience advising on pensions and share ownership plans as well as complex corporate structuring, restructuring and acquisition matters.

His clients include transportation companies, resource companies, manufacturers and investment groups, a variety of business organizations and private individuals. He is also actively involved in advising not-for-profit groups and presently on the BC Law Institute Committee recommending changes to the Society Act of BC.

Mr. Burnett is an active author and speaker. Among his efforts, Mr. Burnett has written: “Buying and Selling Aircraft in Canada” (Air and Space Law Conference – American Bar Association, August 2000), “Unincorporated Business Associations” (Negotiating and Drafting Major Business Agreements Conference, March 2006), and “The Set-up and Maintenance of Charities and Not-For-Profits” (CLE Conference, October 2006). He is a former managing partner of the firm.

Mr. Burnett’s philosophy has been to provide clients with services based upon his experience and his ability to obtain a complete understanding of the client’s business and its overall objectives.

Education

• University of British Columbia (LL.B., 1967)
• University of British Columbia (B.A., (Economics and Political Science), 1964)
• Year of call
• Called to British Columbia Bar, 1968

Affiliations

• Member, Canadian Bar Association, Successions, Trusts and Fiduciary Relationships, Business Law, International Law
• Current Chair of the Air and Space Law Section of the B.C. Branch Canadian Bar Association
• Former Chair of the National Air and Space Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association
• Secretary of Pacific Coastal Airlines Limited
• Member of the Canada/Korea Business Association, Association for Corporate Growth, American Bar Association, Vancouver Board of Trade, Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP)
• Former Chair of Successions Trust and Fiduciary Relationships (BC Branch)
• Chair of Editorial Advisory Committee of the Probate Practice Manual for BC Lawyers

Additional information

BV Rated, Martindale-Hubbell

Miller Thompson website

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How to Maximize Your Company’s Worth: The CEO’s Guide to Becoming Prepared for Investment

Title: How to Maximize Your Company’s Worth: The CEO’s Guide to Becoming Prepared for Investment

Location: Surrey BC
Description: Are You Thinking about Recapitalizing or Changing Ownership of Your Company?

It might only be a thought in the back of your mind now or high on your agenda, however you should know now how to achieve a profitable exit, buyout or obtain growth capital, by getting your company primed to be seen in its best light. Is your company investor-ready? To find out, you are invited to attend,
Start Time: 08:30
Date: Thursday March 19, 2009

End Time: 19:00

Why You’re Failing to Engage Customers

Most companies face barriers that prevent them from fully engaging customers and employees.

Spirit West is a big believer in Gallup’s research. We use their Strengths Finder and their customer focused approach philosophy to achieving lifetime customers.

Why You’re Failing to Engage Customers

by Tom Rieger & Craig Kamins
From: The Gallup Management Journal

The five root causes

Gallup’s study identified about 200 barriers and evaluated the root causes of each. Surprisingly, virtually every barrier identified could be traced back to one of five primary causes, regardless of the industry, function, or geography of the company.

The barriers were often obvious and seemingly intractable, as they involved hundreds of variables and many job roles. Understanding the key variables helps companies identify the specific systems, structures, processes, and people in the organization that must change to overcome the barriers. And though the barriers can seem entrenched and complex, the root causes are not.
Root cause 1: fear

The most prevalent root cause of barriers to engagement is fear; at least one fear-based barrier existed in all the companies Gallup studied. While it may seem surprising that companies with rational, disciplined management would be subject to self-inflicted damage due to fear, the data indicate that it likely happens in all companies.

Fear-based barriers restrict employee and customer engagement in several ways. Fear stifles innovation and creativity, limits an organization’s flexibility in meeting customer requirements, prevents cross-functional collaboration in addressing problems, discourages empowerment, and causes turnover.

As companies grow, they begin to introduce rules, policies, and procedures that attempt to mitigate concern about loss — loss of control, respect, or certainty that employees will “do the right thing.”

Checks and balances are required in all businesses, but they can go too far. Examples of institutional fear-based barriers include excessive scripting of customer contacts and lack of frontline empowerment.

Managing institutional fear may sound daunting, but it can be done. For example, the customer center of a financial services company decided that rather than scripting its customer center interactions, it would provide guidelines to encourage customer service representatives (CSRs) to use “value added phrases.” The key is to establish limits while allowing employees to take some risks to meet customer or internal needs. Risks that succeed should be rewarded; risks that fail, but are attempted within the rules, should be treated as learning experiences rather than as a cause for discipline.

The second source of fear in an organization is at the individual level. Even when an organization is struggling, some employees will find power and contentment in the status quo. This leads them to resist change — actively or passively.

Typically, fearful employees fall into three categories:

• The reluctant gatekeepers: These employees tend to derail progress or innovation. Often, they are influential players who are more interested in protecting the “old way” than in adapting to a changing environment.
• The risk-averse: These workers are reluctant to challenge inefficiencies or to propose change — in the organization or in their own department — because they fear reprisal or are concerned about how change might affect their role or workload.
• The “speed bumps”: These employees aren’t necessarily in a position to directly influence thinking in the organization. But they can, through lack of knowledge or motivation, slow down the progress of groups tasked to investigate challenges and enact change.

Managing individual fear is more challenging because this type of fear can’t necessarily be conquered by modifications to process or policy. The first step is to ferret out the organizational factors leading to this fear.

For instance, change often inspires fear. One way to counteract this is to improve communication about changes by clearly establishing who is accountable for achieving strategic outcomes.

This helps managers and employees look past the initial hardships of change (such as increased or varying workload, or loss of power or valuable connections) while focusing on the eventual benefits of success (such as increased efficiency and productivity, improved customer relations, or increased sales and incentive-based compensation).

Root cause 2: information flow

Like fear-based barriers, information-flow barriers also existed in all the companies Gallup studied. Information-flow barriers can appear within or across departments and from the front line up to management. These barriers limit employee and customer engagement by preventing employees from getting the information they need to maximize their performance.

In many organizations, departments work at cross purposes or fail to understand other departments’ strengths.

There are two main types of communication barriers. The first is a transmission failure: when information fails to flow smoothly from management to frontline employees or from the front lines back to management. Here are two examples:

• A number of the companies Gallup studied failed to provide their frontline employees with sufficient information to do their job well. This can happen when departments hoard crucial information that other departments may need. Or, system limitations can prevent a holistic view if customer-facing employees cannot access every customer account, leading to missed opportunities and slower service delivery.
• Other companies failed to incorporate frontline input into their decision-making process. One manufacturing plant installed new equipment without input from frontline employees, even though those workers knew immediately that the machine wouldn’t achieve its goal. The equipment was pulled from the line at a tremendous cost. Incidentally, there is significant evidence to suggest that involving frontline workers in decision making not only helps reduce turnover, but it also increases revenue.

The second type of communication barrier occurs when employees fail to assimilate information or use it effectively. The most common causes of this are a lack of time to process or understand new information or insufficient access to needed fact.

• According to executives in a public utility service center, CSRs in a call center must often absorb and implement more than 50 process changes per week. However, many call centers provide very little time for CSRs to read their e-mail (if they even have e-mail access) or learn about changes in other ways.
• A large national pharmacy and convenience store never has employee meetings, so employees don’t always learn about policy changes or new initiatives promptly. When communication does occur, it often leaves out the “why” behind the change. As noted earlier, a failure to explain change initiatives can lead to fear. Without appropriate communication — and time to assimilate it — frontline employees struggle to adapt.

There are many ways to address transmission barriers. A good strategy is to analyze how information flows across an organization — between departments, to the front line, and to management. Mapping communication can pinpoint where information is being lost, blocked, or distorted.

It’s just as important to analyze how communication is assimilated. A particular department or group may be receiving information — but are they receiving it when they need it? Do workers have time to read it? Is the technology used to send the message appropriate? Is the message easy to understand, and can employees apply it immediately to their work? Does it conflict with other messages? Is there a way for managers or workers to request additional information, and how quickly is it provided? Addressing questions like these is the key to providing timely strategic and tactical information.

Root cause 3: organizational alignment

Successful communication alone isn’t enough to ensure that operations will run smoothly between departments. In many organizations, departments work at cross purposes or fail to understand other departments’ strengths. Barriers like these existed in 92% of the organizations analyzed in the Gallup study.

Lack of goal alignment was the most common barrier of this kind, found in 83% of the organizations. As companies grow larger and individual fiefdoms become more powerful, some departments set goals that don’t necessarily mesh with the goals of other departments. Friction invariably results.

Barriers like these typically appear as conflicts between departments with competing goals: sales and service (customer acquisition versus customer retention), sales and operations (revenue generation versus cost control), human resources and operations (controlling hiring decisions versus living with them). Here are three examples of poor goal alignment:

• Promises made in the sales process can place burdens on the service organization. A balance transfer on a credit card may sound attractive, but customers may become unhappy if they later learn that “low rate” balances get paid off first, while interest on the remaining balance and new charges continue to accrue at a higher rate.
• A call center may have strict goals for handling as many service calls as it can as quickly as it can. However, if the CSRs answering the phones don’t share the same goals as the field technicians, the CSRs may be tempted to “just send a technician,” even though, by spending a little more time with callers, they could have solved the problem over the phone.
• Important information “left unsaid” in a mortgage loan-acquisition process, such as prepayment penalties, servicing fees, and additional closing costs may create unpleasant surprises for the customer. These surprises then must be dealt with by escrow, closing, and service personnel.

In each of these examples, departments end up working against each other at the expense of employee engagement, customer engagement, and profitability. In each case, the system rewards one group at the expense of another.

Addressing alignment barriers starts with an analysis of the company’s goals. Companies that want alignment across all functions must aggressively manage their goal-setting process. Each goal should make a definable contribution to a key business outcome, such as revenue, repeat purchases, or increased customer engagement. Similarly, each employee should make a definable contribution to other departments as well as his or her own.

Goals should not be set in a parochial manner, in which local success trumps corporate success. But neither should department goals be so focused that success on local, tactical goals isn’t rewarded at all. Finding the correct mix of local and shared accountabilities with clear links to outcomes greatly improves the odds that alignment barriers won’t hinder a company’s success. A strong performance management system can help structure goals into appropriate success metrics and incentives.

Another manifestation of friction-based barriers is a lack of a holistic customer strategy. It’s not unusual for organizations to treat customers more like transactions than like people, but people never see themselves that way. Business banking customers also have personal checking accounts. People with checking accounts also have credit cards. Business travelers also take family vacations. Luxury car buyers may have teenagers who need a more modest automobile. Yet companies rarely are able to cross-reference activity across channels.

Organizations frequently overlook the reality that poor performance in one channel will affect perceptions of the company as a whole, or that excellent performance in one channel may represent an opportunity to broaden the customer relationship in other areas. Both opportunities to improve are lost when the channels don’t align.

Improved knowledge management systems can help companies implement a holistic customer strategy. However, employees from different departments also need to provide one another with consistent service. Too often, departments lack insight into how their actions affect other areas of the company, leading to mutual distrust and competing claims that the other departments are inefficient, uncooperative, or just “don’t get it.” Consistent service to internal customers — whether it’s employee to employee or team to team — can help companies identify cross-selling or process-efficiency opportunities that can benefit external customers too.

Root cause 4: money

Money-related barriers existed in 82% of the companies Gallup studied. However, the actual percentage was likely higher, as these types of barriers may have existed in some pockets of the organization that were not included in each study. There are two main types of financial barriers.

Not all incentives need to be financial. Recognition can be a powerful reward, too.

First, people generally do what they are rewarded to do. It follows, then, that improperly balanced compensation and incentives can actually encourage the wrong behaviors. For example, if a customer service call center only provides incentives for cross sales and low handle time, CSRs will be highly motivated to rush customers, while pushing as many products as possible as quickly as possible. Worse yet, CSRs might even be rewarded for hanging up on callers before their problem is resolved, forcing customers to call back a second time.

The second type of financial barrier is related to internal resource allocation decisions. Budget battles are often won based on the best sales presentation, the loudest voice, or personal relationships rather than on a set of unbiased guiding principles, such as the impact of each budget decision on customers, employees, financials, or risk.

Even when there is a level playing field, resource allocations aren’t always aligned with strategy if decisions are too closely tied to the previous year’s budget. In that case, departments are unlikely to surrender budget willingly to another, even though corporate strategy or change initiatives make the other department’s needs more urgent.

The best way to address compensation and allocation barriers is not necessarily to fight self-interest, as employees and department heads usually gravitate toward the money. Instead, companies should ensure that self-interest is aligned with corporate goals.

For employees, all desired behaviors should be rewarded under a balanced incentive system. For example, if a company is focused on both revenue growth and customer retention, it may want to reward sales representatives for total sales and individual account growth. This would reduce a rep’s inclination to focus primarily on new sales and to keep him or her from taking the “quick win” if it comes at the expense of the long-term health of the account. (See “Roadblocks to Customer Engagement [Part 1]” and “Giving Them What They Deserve” in the “See Also” area on this page.)

Not all incentives need to be financial. More often than many managers realize, recognition itself can be a powerful reward, especially when the type of position, a union contract, or other circumstances make praise the only way to reward employees. Specific behaviors or outcomes may be treated as milestones toward advancement or promotion, rather than directly rewarding employees through base or incentive pay. (See “The Best Ways to Recognize Employees” and “Don’t Promote Your Stars” in the “See Also” area on this page.)

Some allocation barriers may relate to the company’s goals. As discussed earlier, a lack of shared goals may generate barriers to engagement by inadvertently pitting one department against another. However, shared goals alone don’t guarantee that a company will be free from these types of challenges. Shared goals must be balanced with local and tactical objectives that address the role a business unit, division, or department plays in driving corporate strategy.

Transparency is also helpful. Resource allocation can have a strong impact on employee engagement, particularly if budgeting decisions seem to be based on favoritism or in support of “flavor-of-the-month” initiatives.

Root cause 5: short-term focus

These “quick-fix” barriers existed in 82% of the companies Gallup studied. The barriers included acts of commission, or actions taken in the interest of near-term benefits that may have a negative impact on mid- to long-term revenues and profits, and acts of omission, which occur when the company takes no action in an area that requires long-term planning or analysis.

Adopting a short-term focus is not necessarily a barrier to engagement.

Acts of commission are common, particularly in public companies that focus more on quarterly earnings than on long-term horizons. In many cases, these acts involve significant near-term cutbacks. For example:

• To make this quarter’s numbers, a company may stop hiring new employees. However, after a few months, staffing shortages may result in overtime, lost customers, and inefficiencies that far outweigh the initial savings.
• A plant may delay needed equipment repairs to save a few dollars in the short term but suffer even greater repair needs and downtime when the machine fails.

Acts of commission are not always the result of cost cutting. Some companies drive employees to the breaking point to generate an increase in near-term sales; others strive to achieve the same sales goal through extreme discounting of their products or services. Both strategies may drive short-term sales while damaging relationships with employees — or undermining customer relationships or the brand.

When it comes to acts of omission, the most common barrier is a lack of succession planning. This goes beyond identifying potential stars for future leadership in the organization. Many companies fail to make a “plan for success” for employees in crucial but less prestigious roles. These barriers also occur when there is an urgent need to “put out the fire” without carefully thinking about how badly you have “flooded the house.” For example, resources may be pulled from other projects to handle an emergency, which later causes those projects to fail or miss deadlines.

Given the realities of the marketplace, companies will always struggle with balancing short-term and long-term needs. Adopting a short-term focus is not necessarily a barrier to engagement. To determine whether its near-term actions will have a negative impact on long-term engagement, a company needs to ask itself three questions:

1. Do these actions achieve a strategic goal? Some companies must take immediate measures to drive a lagging stock price or to capitalize on an opportunity to grab market share from a weakened competitor. But a myopic focus can also be a symptom of other barriers mentioned above, such as fear, communication breakdowns, or lack of collaboration between departments.

2. What are the implications of these actions? There are situations in which a short-term gain is justified, but a near-term focus can become a barrier when mid- to long-term implications aren’t considered. Logic and discipline must be added to resource-allocation decisions to avoid these types of barriers. By implementing a set of guiding principles that balance short- and long-term costs and rewards, a company should be able to rationally prioritize long-terms decisions. Guiding principles for decision making may include questions such as:

• How will this decision affect our revenue?
• How will this decision affect our costs?
• To what extent will this decision decrease or increase liability or risk?
• Will this decision prevent or inadvertently encourage any catastrophic failures that could lead to higher costs?
• How will this decision affect employee engagement?

3. What will these actions communicate to employees and customers? Employees must feel that the company is making the right moves. Consistent communication about change and change initiatives is important, particularly if the company is concerned about maintaining employee engagement. Companies should give change initiatives the appropriate resources and support even if that increases short-term costs.

Pulling down barriers

If organizations want to build and sustain a great workplace that, in turn, builds strong customer relationships, it’s not enough to simply measure employee or customer engagement, then hold team meetings to discuss it. Workgroups can meet to identify and address local issues, but institutional systems outside the control of managers and employees can remain thorny barriers to employee and customer engagement. Barriers like these must be systematically addressed by company leaders; organizations that fail to address them may find that they are limiting their ability to achieve strategic targets.

Having a disciplined, objective approach to identifying and removing systemic barriers related to fear, information flow, organizational alignment, money, and short-term focus can help clear a path toward organic growth.

Tom Rieger is a Partner and Senior Consultant in Brand Loyalty Management for The Gallup Organization.
Craig Kamins is an Assocate Partner with The Gallup Organization.

More Information…

The Creative Class

The Creative Class now comprises about 30% of the entire workforce. The choices these people make will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and what brands will survive and thrive.

The Gallup Organization and GSD&M have partnered with Richard Florida to develop the first-ever segmentation study of the Creative Class, shedding light on who they are, how they live, and how they can be reached. By understanding the segments that exist within the Creative Class, organizations can identify the right audiences and deliver the right products and services using the right messages in the right places.

To learn more about the event or to register, visit the The Creative Class page on the Gallup Consulting site or contact Mary Penner-Lovci at 212-899-4890, Krista Volzke at 402-938-6001, or Amy White at 609-279-2233.

For a complete schedule of learning opportunities, visit the Learning Events page on the Gallup Consulting Web site.

14 Warning Signals Post Acquisition

Post Acquisition Integration – Do you know the warning signs it isn’t going well?

Introduction

Spirit West works on the people and strategy issues which undermine productivity. After a merger, interpersonal and cultural issues often prevent the new strategy from unfolding. We have developed a proven methodology and set of tools to teach and mentor leaders the “how to” of leading change.

From getting buy-in for building the change management plan to working through roles and responsibilities, our job is to help leaders and managers recognize the pot holes before they fall in. We show them how to remedy the endless Catch 22 situations that arises before during and after a merger or an acquisition. We don’t keep busy executives away from the office, we keep them engaged and participating in highly focused sessions on the work of integration.

Post Merger Integration – 14 Warning Signals All Executives Should Watch For

by Lorraine Rieger, Copyright © 2005 All Rights Reserved

This list of warning signals is based on direct experience with out clients. To determine whether there are warning signals, spend time observing people, listening to their stories, the words they use and the attitudes that emerge. After a few days, you should have sufficient data to assess whether the signals are present.

The following list of warning signals is in order of severity of the problem, least to most. If all that is observed is the first or second signal but none of the others, a small problem exists which can be rectified with a communications plan. If there are at least five warning signals, the problem is escalating and will affect productivity. If there are more than five warning signals present, then productivity is already a problem. The company may soon lose some of their best people who refuse to work in a polarized workplace. More than nine? The company has a toxic problem: There are many elephants in many rooms. Need help naming and clearing out the elephants? Call Rob McGregor 604-377-4307.

1. Merger Purpose Fuzzy:

The purpose of the merger and how it relates to each employee is unclear. People can’t explain it, they argue about what it is or isn’t or make jokes about it. Their minds are occupied on the change and their confusion about it. How can you buy-in to something you don’t understand yet? This removes 50% of your productive capacity.

Answer:

When people comply, only 50% of their mental capacity, willingness and contributions are available to the company. Why? No one wants to risk jumping in 100% until they know what it means for them. How do you get willingness? Let them participate in creating their part of the future. This has huge implications for productivity and profitability. The Vision Event facilitates this process.

2. What’s in it for me?

People are waiting for the parent company or their own leaders to provide contextual direction. Often what they have heard to date is just a restatement of the party-line. You keep hearing the party line but managers have yet to give it context for a department or project area.

Answer:

Department leaders and teams need to work on developing their own vision based on what they do have control over.

How can you help the people on your team to find some aspect of the vision that can be made relevant and personal to them? They want to know how to be successful in the “new” and near future. Explore the topic with them. Team coaching is needed.

3. This is a Good Thing?

Leaders are so busy selling the optimism of this merged vision they can’t see how it is affecting stakeholders and managers. They miss the body language, water-cooler talk, resistance and use of negative and cautionary language being used. Or if they can see the affect, they don’t know how to influence proactive change. “This merger is a good thing” will not change the hearts and minds to start making it work.

Answer:

Sure the merger will be good, but in the mean time, acknowledging it’s difficult to change and that uncertainty about how to proceed is everyone’s concern, can go a long way to helping leaders deal with employee resistance. A thing is what it is. Telling them otherwise sends resistance down deep where you can’t see it.

4. Culture Clash.

There is culture clash of mannerisms. The acquired company was loose in their communication style and “shot from the hip”. The acquiring company is more formal and reserved in how they work together. They see the acquired company as “rude and unprofessional”. The acquired company sees their new parent as “dinosaurs stuck in analysis paralysis”, afraid to make things happen. Both sides are fed up and offended. Meetings are unproductive.

Answer:

This is a classic problem that has to be brought out into the open or it will fester and few synergies will ever be found. People will just “put up with each other” and eventually leave. Bridge builders must be found and cultivated to provide interpretation for both sides. Peace talks need to occur where both sides air their assumptions and make new agreements about how to talk to each other, work together and make decisions.

5. New Teams Have Poor Communication.

Leaders feel frustrated with their direct reports. Their people don’t talk. The leader sends an email to the team and gets back six different responses rather than a well thought-out unified response.

Answer:

Set the boundary – if you want a unified response, ask your new team for it. You may need to facilitate the first meeting to show them how to work collaboratively to find a unified response. Then let them select their own spokesperson on a rotating basis. Sometimes, people just don’t know how to “get off their need to be right”. They need a role model. So think about it, if you need to be right, does that mean I am automatically wrong for presenting another opinion or idea? Collaboration starts at the top.

6. Un-communicated Expectations.

Real planning for the future is blocked by short-term focus on immediate crises and pet projects. In the absence of planning, some over plan their parts and live in fear that the ‘others’ will be too disorganized and sabotage the projects they have meticulously planned. The result? Endless disappointment and blame from un-communicated expectations.

Answer:

This often means the leaders don’t have a vision for their own role in the future. Their own uncertainty about their power and position in the company blocks their ability to think long-term. Each project has a hidden agenda to protect image, power and reputation. It’s a difficult conversation to start but expressing your own vision to the executive may spark some inspiration.

7. Blame Creeps in.

Uncertainty about the future causes fear. Fear causes conflict. Conflict starts the cycle of blame. A culture of blame fosters a workforce and leadership team that avoids self-responsibility, originality and collaboration. This diminishes mental capacity, productivity and performance. Listen to the tone and what people say in meetings and casual conversation and you will hear the judgment, blame and conflict.

Answer:

Talk about the uncertainty. If the boss and leaders acknowledge it, then everyone else can breathe a sigh of relief. Lead by example: Be transparent in your communication, stop the judgment and as leaders, take responsibility for your part in everything. Learn how to “name the elephant”… that atmosphere in the air that everyone notices but no one can talk about. One-on-One coaching teaches leaders how to listen, interpret and resolve the dynamics of conflict.

8. Us versus Them.

Listen to people’s stories: People cast others in the role of a villain… ‘the them’s’, seeing ‘them’ as malicious and uncaring. Especially the management of the acquiring company. There is a lot of finger pointing starting. People actually say “management doesn’t get it and isn’t listening”.

Answer:

When people’s concerns are not heard, or there is no appropriate forum for them to voice questions, ideas and problems, the boss and those in power become the bad guys. Start one-on-one and group forums. Hold them frequently. This is not your moment to defend your position or decisions. It’s the time to really listen and do something with what is heard. You need good data to make decisions. Your employees own the data. The Vision Event is a good forum for planning and opening people to the possibilities instead of the negatives.

9. New Ideas Not Welcome Here.

At meetings with a mix of old and new people, new ideas are shot down first and then they and their owner are held in contempt for their failings. Since testing out new ideas are viewed as “mistakes”, innovation stagnates and problems go underground.

Answer:

Look to your own style first. Do you help people explore ideas or turn them down as soon as they are voiced? Talk about the issue of judging and criticizing new ways of thinking, and how you work with new initiatives with your team. How do you want to acknowledge and work with your own ideas? Are you going to grow or stick with the status quo? As a leader, you set the atmosphere through your approach.

10. Meetings Missed.

When leaders don’t know how to get their people to do more than just comply, they often stop holding meetings, or meetings remain unproductive. This leaderless leadership team becomes competitive rather than collaborative in order to get back the attention of the boss.

Answer:

This is evidence of a lot more going on under the surface. When leaders can’t get results, they need to understand how they get in their own way. There are also many good collaboration tools to run meetings that get results. But first, leaders have to decide what they want to achieve.

11. Finding Fault Then Fixing Symptoms.

Decisions are based on solutions-minded ideas that fail to address the real needs of the organization, and the more difficult research to understand the root of the problem is skipped in favour of instantly gratifying action plans.

Answer:

The first step in addressing a problem is to frame it properly. Design the frame for the positive outcome you want, not for the problem it points to. Now explore the reasons for the issue. Look further than your own team for the answers.

12. Camps Have Formed.

Teams are polarized into us versus them camps. Camps often operate under blind consensus with their ringleader. They defend their right to be right. They occupy their time with discussion, derision, and dissection of decisions after they have been made. Camps are a major warning sign that the division is lacking leadership or the leader has set up the competitive atmosphere. It’s a major productivity drain which affects performance and profitability.

Answer:

If camps have emerged, many of the above issues have been going on for a long time. They are a sign that people feel powerless and this is their way to gain back some sense of control to deal with their fear. There is a lot of foundation work to be done to regain trust and productivity to reunite everyone.

13. Fiefdoms Ignore Each Other.

Leadership teams demand decisions and direction, but each member of the team acts independently when they don’t get what they want.

Answer:

This is a symptom of lack of trust. It is not OK to speak the truth on this team. Look back at which events caused uncertainty. Ask yourself if that was when people’s communication started to get blocked. Not sure what to look for? How often do your people really look each other in the eye at meetings? Not much? Too much? You’ve got unfinished business. Be transparent yourself. Don’t blame those that acted independently, investigate why communication stopped if you want to understand how to deal with the problem.

14. No One Cares Anymore.

Some say no one else is doing their job well enough and that they are the only ones who care. The others revert to activities that are easy for them, that don’t involve leadership or needing to deal with problems. Another group is trying to mediate the others or help everyone else understand the nature of their problems. The leaders avoid and self-blame and are then overcome by paralysis.

Answer:

Everyone copes with change and uncertainty in their own way. Their behaviour can help you to understand how they personally perceive the change. A facilitated group discussion on the topic may clear the air.

How Do You Manage a Gorilla for a Partner?

Case Study Project Description

A software and consulting firm had developed a sought after add on tool for a popular software application. This tool added robust functionality and enabled project managers to get far more reporting to make better decisions.

Project Problem

When a company lacks the brand name status of the big players in software, it is vital for survival to partner with a company where your product adds value, and the prospect of greater sales to a partner company. However, the challenges of managing this partnership have to become part of the business equation rather than something to be ignored after the partnership agreement is signed.

Solution

You are only valuable to a large partner as long as your product helps sell their product; your company understands and supports the partner’s goals; you add big new ideas to their operations team; you find ways to be beneficial to the marketing team; and you realize that even though the partner’s product support team may love your product because it fixes something in their product, this is not enough to stay relevant for a long time to the partner.

Partnerships in software have a short shelf life. They should be focused on some immediate markets, with an action and implementation and then a harvesting of profits. Then the big company will have moved on to other partnerships or evolved their solution to the next version making your offering irrelevant or worse, behind in its own development so it gets dropped. Realize these facts before deciding to chase after the partnership with the big gorilla in the market.

The owners of this company were constantly at odds with their partner because they had different expectations than what actually occurred. We developed a program to get the product support team on board, which they were delighted with. But then the corresponding marketing program (a coupon for the add on product in the partner product’s packaging), never materialized any extra lead generation. The software marketer has to constantly be monitoring the affects of any of its activities and constantly make changes to the copy, the placement of the message and other aspects of the action plan. If one thing doesn’t work, come up with another idea and present it to the partner company and collaboratively improve on it.

Results

We mapped out several marketing routes and managed the interface between the owners and the partner company through several versions of the product over several years. When immediate results were not achieved, both parties became contentious and were not interested in working together. Despite numerous patch ups and re-engagement efforts, we were not able to change the tide in attitude. The company spent a great deal on advertising, nothing on public relations and didn’t work collaboratively on solutions with the partner company to keep tweaking the messaging. When the partner company came out with the next version, the add-on was quietly forgotten. The company could not keep the development pace of the partner’s product.

Breathing New Life into a Commodity ERP System

Case Study Project Description

The COO of a 20 year old software company needed to find new markets for their product. While other competitors had been acquired over the years, they had carved out a small niche but their customers were migrating to the larger brand name platforms. As revenue declined employees left including their sales and marketing manager. Without resellers and a sales leader, the company seemed like it was heading into its twilight years.

Project Problem

ERP solutions for human resources, payroll and performance are dominated by the large ERP vendors. In this business, the old adage that ‘those that choose to buy IBM don’t go wrong’ seemed to dominate the purchasing decisions. How could this stable and proven software company get into new markets without being PeopleSoft or IBM? Further, the company had pursued many unrelated markets so reference clients were dotted across the spectrum of industries and geographies. There seemed to be no natural fit into any one target market despite the superb reputation they enjoyed for service amongst their great reference clients. The CEO and the COO were concerned about focusing on only one or two markets unsure as to whether they would yield any results.

Solution

The solution to this problem was to uncover what this product did that other products couldn’t do. After 20 years in business, the product had some very robust functionality and it did not price out after implementation nearly as high as its brand name competitors. Identifying what it did that other products couldn’t do, we searched for which markets had these unique few issues and needed specific problems solved. When this research was done, then we had to find the industries that had these problems where the company actually had reference clients.

From there, we helped them develop a marketing message, case studies, press releases, a web 2.0 strategy, measurement, KPIs and a lead generation system that tied together to become their call to action. We then coached the senior team in how to work with and use the message, how to build capacity to manage the growth and how to constantly evolve and improve the messaging system so that it would attract motivated buyers within two different and fragmented target markets.

Result

The time-intensive research and market focused discipline combined with a dedication to web 2.0 and public relations approach rather than expensive advertising started to pay dividends. In the first year, they achieved 400% growth in their sales calls and started winning business from much larger competitors.

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