Marcia's Leadership Q and A's: 4 tips for your team retreat

Thank you for submitting your leadership questions to md@mdaszko.com.

Q. As our team emerges from remote work and we re-enter the office setting, I think we will have new and different issues. To prepare, I’d like the executive team to meet for a management off-site or executive retreat. Is this a good approach and of value to re-energize our team?

A. Executive’s plans to schedule an offsite retreat in the next quarter, has catapulted 900% in the past month. Leaders anticipate a stronger need to meet and strategize. This will be followed by more team retreats to gather and revive their collaboration and focus.

I’ve facilitated thousands of leadership meetings, board retreats, strategic planning sessions and management offsite meetings for over 25 years. I believe they are of value, beyond comparison, with one caveat: they must be facilitated well (outside thinking and questions are imperative.) Address the aim early: why are you having the meeting with the team. There are many team meetings that are held; people feel good and experience a workshop-high, but there’s little progress or improvement back at work. If you want to learn, work, and strategize together to make a difference, it’s hard work. That’s the work of leadership!

I’ve surveyed executives and managers who have participated in offsite meetings and management retreats. Here are the key benefits they describe (there are many more): participants are able to open up, share, contribute, collaborate, build relationships, listen deeply, create more understanding and empathy, address not only problems but the root causes to long-term problems, and explore options, strategies, and plans; there’s a renewed focus and prioritizing on what’s important and will make a difference; new learning and ideas that are introduced (usually through experiential exercises and a variety of education techniques) are processed  with different perspectives; data and trends are studied to optimize your organization; there’s room to test ideas and discuss future opportunities and the bold impact you can have.

The team develops a new lens and are more resilient as they elevate to a new level of leadership. The results of an effective offsite are:

• an ability to address and focus on deeper issues and accelerate decisions;

• breaking down barriers between people and departments and creating a healthier workplace of trust and support;

• linking the current business to the future direction; and

• beginning to transform beliefs, plans, structure, and management style into innovative leadership and bold results.

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BIO:

Marcia Daszko works with Boards, C-suite leaders and teams to guide their leadership transformation to accelerate and achieve bold results never before imagined. She is a provocative keynote, breakout, and digital speaker for conferences and corporate events. She has been a strategic business advisor and management consultant based on Dr. Deming’s philosophy of leadership for 25+ years. An executive retreat facilitator and MBA professor, she is also the bestselling author of the book “Pivot Disrupt Transform.”  Contact Marcia Daszko for her help at md@mdaszko.com    www.mdaszko.com  

Marcia's Leadership Q and A's: How to Grow Your Business!

Thank you for submitting your leadership questions to md@mdaszko.com.

Q. What are the best tips for having or improving our competitive edge?

A. There are some easy answers, but few are implemented well. First, answer the phone! Second, if people are on hold, minimize the time; cut it in half—again and again, until the hold time is zero. Third, regularly call your number and understand what your customer experiences; then improve it. Fourth, if you interact in other ways with your customers, improve the efficiency and response time by email or text. Make it easy for your customers to interact with you, ask questions and get help and feel like you are committed to serving them.

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Q. How do we create an engine of growth for our company coming out of COVID or any crisis?

A. Answer what you want to accomplish with your organization (beyond being profitable—of course; you need to stay in business.) Your business grows when you have great ideas developed by your people who are excited to share their products and services with their customers. You achieve that when you invest in your people. How can you emotionally, physically, mentally support them? Ask them! What do they need to work together in the best ways and wow their customers and create new markets? Give them room to explore ideas, implement them, fail or accomplish more and move forward. Always stay future-focused.

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BIO:

Marcia Daszko works with Boards, C-suite leaders and teams to guide their leadership transformation to accelerate and achieve bold results never before imagined. She is a provocative keynote, breakout, and digital speaker for conferences and corporate events. She has been a strategic business advisor and management consultant based on Dr. Deming’s philosophy of leadership for 25+ years. An executive retreat facilitator and MBA professor, she is also the bestselling author of the book “Pivot Disrupt Transform.”  Contact Marcia Daszko for her help at md@mdaszko.com    www.mdaszko.com  

Marcia's Leadership Q and As: Quality—The Key Differentiator of Success

Q. Our senior managers are disconnected from what’s going on in our business. We have many complaints from customers, and nothing improves.

A. Great leaders and their organizations are connected to both their customers and employees and understand their needs. Successful organizations have leaders who create systems and communication channels to hear the voice of the employees and the customers.

Quality is defined by the customers; if product, service, or communication quality is poor and declining, the company is on its way out of business. Leaders need to transform its thinking and turn around. This only happens when leaders pivot and focus on what’s important: quality and service. Where is quality created? It comes from the vision of the Board of Directors and a leadership team working together.

When customers complain or disappear and they choose your competitors, it’s a reflection of poor leadership, strategies, or decisions. Often, it’s easy to see the decline and failure of billion-dollar corporations to small companies. An easy question to ask is: Are the leaders connected to the needs of their customers? Or is there so much complexity in the organization that customers who try to voice their complaints or concerns are not heard? It’s a priority for the management team to understand and address the system of customer feedback. Great leaders often spend more than 50% to 80% in conversation with their constituencies. How much time do you spend?

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Q. Where should executives and managers focus the most? On profits?

A. If leaders spend most of their focus on profits, they will lead a rapid journey to their demise. It’s a common belief to focus on making money and the bottom line. Unfortunately, that doesn’t deliver success or satisfaction. I often ask executives, “Is your company in business to make money? Is that your purpose?” A purpose for being in business is energizing, and it drives a team to deliver and serve customers. If leaders develop deep and meaningful relationships, loyal customers who can depend on an organization will repeatedly return. Think about your favorite vendors.

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Send your leadership questions to Marcia Daszko at md@mdaszko.com. She works with Boards, C-suite leaders and teams to pivot, innovate, accelerate and achieve bold results never before imagined. A provocative keynote & virtual speaker, strategic Deming advisor/consultant for 25+ years, and executive retreat facilitator, she is the bestselling author of the book “Pivot Disrupt Transform.” www.mdaszko.com Call for her help today!

Marcia's Leadership Q&AS

Q. The work ethic and follow-through in our employees in the past year has taken a nose dive. I’m concerned for our customers and the business. What do you suggest?

A. This is a concern that I’ve heard more from business owners and managers also in the past year. There are a variety of causes. I don’t like making Covid an easy excuse for everything, but it has had an impact on some people’s dedication to work, their job, their company. For other people they were never taught how to be responsible workers and follow through. They didn’t have parents who were role models, or they didn’t have excellent job training, so how could they know what’s expected of them? 

Effective onboarding, continual education/training, and two-way communication are all helpful to set the expectations about the work quality you want and the quality of service you want the customers to receive.  It’s important to train people, especially if they are new to the job market. Observe them, role play if necessary, ask them for their ideas, and ask them how they think the work can be improved. More and more communication often make a difference! 

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Q. I’ve been invited to join a cohort of executives to meet regularly and discuss our challenges in our businesses. I’m open to sharing and learning from others. We’re from different industries. Are there any downsides to joining a group besides the time commitment?

A. First, think about your purposes for joining a group of colleagues. Is it a learning group, a time to share or vent your issues and have a sympathetic ear, a social focus, or a time to deeply challenge where you are and explore how you can gather ideas for development and business growth? It may be some or all of these. But define what it really your purpose and what is important.

Second, will you first have a conversation with the other members to determine if this group is a good fit for you. Will they both challenge and support you? Some share old management fads, opinions, and “best practices” that don’t add any value to their learning; people stay in the status quo with little development. Other executive groups make a lot of progress. 

It’s important to think about what you want to accomplish and then over a few months, assess if people are just sharing opinions or substantial management concepts, tools, and relevant applications. You should feel intense learning!

Leadership Unites and Partners to Deliver Rare Results

Strange bedfellows have emerged in the past year as the world addressed the pandemic. For example, GM and Ford pivoted their production lines to make ventilators, and beer breweries shifted to produce hand sanitizers.

Pharmaceutical companies around the world began the race to create vaccines to protect society from COVID19 and its variants. Independently, corporations compete to win; they are rivals. First to market, best to market—who will it be?

The pandemic has driven all of the pharma companies around the world to discover vaccines that will be safe and effective.

A Compelling Aim Unites a Collaborative Team

This week we saw the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services identify and supply the funding so two typically rival mega-pharma corporations (Merck and Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company) would collaborate, unite, and support each other. Together they will accelerate the vaccine production needed. Merck did not succeed in discovering their own vaccine, but they are scaling up their manufacturing capacity to deliver millions of vaccine vials for distribution to the people in need.

Leaders Use a Strategic Compass

The Strategic Compass is a powerful inter-dependent strategy tool that can be used to drive toward and accelerate successful results in any or across organizations and industries. The Compass has five interactive parts. It quickly helps leaders to:

• focus and prioritize

• ask and answer the essential questions, and

• communicate to the teams the extraordinary results they need to achieve.

When the compelling aim is clear, great leadership communicates it to the people who can collaborate and deliver. By what method will they achieve the aim? What values will they stand for in action, not just words? Who will they serve and what do those customers/patients/members/students need? How will leaders measure progress and success?

Strategic Compass

Whether an organization has its annual goals to achieve or a global pandemic and crisis is threatening survival of society as we knew it, leaders can focus and address their issues. The Strategic Compass is an imperative guide.

Win-Win-Win

There are times for competition, but there are more compelling opportunities for cooperation and collaborations. Businesses may compete, but during the times they collaborate, we all may win. When the Compelling Aim is enormous and too large for one organization, leaders who merge resources, creativity, and brain power, create more successes. Another example is climate change. It will take millions of people working together to reverse the impact of global climate change.

When you’re faced with challenges and crises, look at the bigger picture to discover the power of Win-Win-Win results. Use your leadership and courage to answer the questions on the Strategic Compass, and optimize (not merely maximize) your results.

Marcia’s Leadership Q&A

Send your leadership and team questions to Marcia Daszko at md@mdaszko.com.  She works with Boards, C-suite leaders and teams to pivot, innovate, accelerate and achieve bold results never before imagined. A provocative keynote & virtual speaker, strategic Deming advisor/consultant for 25+ years, she is the bestselling author of the book “Pivot Disrupt Transform.” www.mdaszko.com

Q. When should a team prepare for a crisis? Is it too early to plan for the next crisis, especially when we’re still in the middle of this one?

A. Great leaders, at work and at home, anticipate and consider challenges and how they will respond to them. Whether it’s pilots training to deal with a challenge in flight, families preparing for an earthquake or a hurricane, a driver being aware of the traffic, a company preparing for a pandemic or loss of a major client, people do a variety of crisis planning. Some companies had a plan in case they were ever faced with a pandemic. Did your company have a plan? Those that had one had created it with calm rationality and could quickly adapt it. Others had to rapidly pivot, or they struggled.

Thoughtful leaders at home and at work think ahead. They scan their environment for safety. What might they be faced with?  With your team, what do you need to think about, anticipate, discuss, plan and prepare for? It’s never too late to make a plan. That’s what leaders do. When it’s needed, leaders and their rapid action teams adapt and pivot, and respond. If an unforeseen crisis occurs, teams who have a foundation in leadership thinking, will respond rather than react or freeze in fear.

Q. What signs should a leader look out for that signal that they may not be the right leader for the job anymore or should take a different role in the organization and move aside?

A. It is not uncommon for a founder, owner or executive to move aside as an organization grows, needs to scale, or goes through transitions they have no experience in or are uncomfortable with. The enterprise may be moving and growing at a fast pace, building in complexity, or innovating into new areas of expertise. If executives feel overwhelmed, uncomfortable, fearful, or are micro-managing, they need to assess if they are continuing to find joy and satisfaction in their current position.

There are multiple ways to address this situation. Many young founders have a close mentor(s) such as a supportive CEO, Board Director or a professor who guide and advise them as they navigate and develop. Or an executive may have founded an organization and be passionate about product development, but may not have an affinity for running or growing a business. People have natural leadership within them and each person needs to decide where they can best contribute and feel fulfilled.