Traction Page 10
The visionary and the integrator couldn’t be more different. In a small to mid-size company, the visionary is typically the owner, co-owner, or founder. In a partnership, most of the time, one partner is the visionary and the other is the integrator. It’s a dynamic that has elevated them to where they are. The visionary typically has 10 new ideas a week. Nine of them might not be so great, but one usually is, and it’s that one idea each week that keeps the organization growing. For this reason, visionaries are invaluable. They’re typically very creative. They’re great solvers of big ugly problems (not the little practical ones), and fantastic with important clients, vendors, suppliers, and banking relationships. The culture of the organization is very important to them, because they usually operate more on emotion and therefore have a better barometer of how people are feeling. If you’re one, know thyself and be free.
By contrast, integrators are typically very good at leading, managing, and holding people accountable. They love running the day-to-day aspects of the business. They are accountable for profit and loss, plus the overall business plan for the organization. They remove obstacles so that people running the major functions can execute. They’re great at special projects. In sum, they operate more on logic. If you are one, know thyself and be stressed.
One University of California professor lectures that you always need both an entrepreneur and a manager at the top of a company. An entrepreneur’s lust needs to be counterbalanced with a manager’s prudence and discipline. He is making the same point as the visionary/integrator relationship, just using different terminology. When it’s structured correctly, the dynamic that exists between the two Unique Abilities® can be magical.
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For a deeper dive into the visionary/integrator dynamic, read Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business. Written with my co-author, Mark C. Winters, it is a complete how-to manual for finding, developing and maximizing your visionary/integrator relationship.
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When Asphalt Specialists, Inc. (ASI), a paving company with annual revenues of $40 million and 120 employees, began The EOS Process, their leadership team was dysfunctional and they had just suffered their first ever unprofitable year. The two owners, brothers Bruce and Dan, were not seeing eye to eye. They were corunning the company, and neither was in the right seat. Dan was entrenched in all aspects of the business and quickly burning out, while Bruce was selling full-time and becoming very frustrated with the state of things.
The creation of their Accountability Chart led to an understanding of the visionary and integrator roles. Through realizing their true skill sets, the two brothers clearly defined their seats. Bruce is now the visionary and Dan is the integrator. With a clear vision, their leadership team is now healthy and eager to accomplish their goal of becoming the best-quality asphalt paving company in their market. At a time when new construction in the region was at a 20-year low and other competing asphalt companies were struggling to stay in business, last year was their most profitable ever.
My first experience with the power of the visionary/integrator roles occurred in my very first company, Wickman Productions, which my dad and I more or less co-ran. As a textbook visionary, he quickly became frustrated with the day-to-day running of the business but kept getting his hands into everything. As a textbook integrator, I wanted him to stay out of my way and let me handle the nuts and bolts.
With frustrations building on both sides, I booked a conference room at a Marriott hotel for the day. I prepared a presentation and locked us in a room. I illustrated what the visionary should do for the greater good of the organization, which was my dad’s Unique Ability®, and what the integrator should do, which was mine. When all of the dust settled, we were both clearly in our right seats, with clear roles and responsibilities, motivated, and ready to go. That was another key factor in accomplishing the turnaround for the company. Clear accountability will take you to the next level.
It’s common for a company to have a visionary but no integrator. This causes a real struggle, because the visionary is constantly frustrated with his or her lack of traction. In addition, he or she has to keep acting as the integrator and get pulled into the day-to-day management of the business. For instance, Bob Shenefelt is a pure visionary. He built his first organization, Great White, to $10 million in revenue and then successfully sold it. He made the Inc. 500 fastest-growing companies list, had a thriving culture, and—guess what? He also had a partner who was an integrator.
In his second company, RCS, he struggled to gain traction and grow past $4 million over a four-year period because he hadn’t found the right integrator. Last year, Bob brought on the right integrator—Patrick Gysel—to fill the role. RCS grew 40 percent, and this year, it will achieve revenues of at least $7 million with no end to further growth in sight.
What makes the Accountability Chart more than just an organizational chart is that once the major functions are clear, each is defined by five major roles. As an example, the visionary function’s five roles might be as follows:
• R&D/ideas
• Creative problem-solving
• Major relationships
• Culture
• Selling
The chart on the following page shows the most common examples of the five major roles for each major function. Remember that about half of all organizations have a visionary role, and the others don’t. This is represented by the dotted line around the visionary.
LMA stands for leading, managing, and holding people accountable. Anyone in the Accountability Chart who has people reporting to him or her has a vital responsibility of LMA. This requires time, energy, and Unique Ability®.
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For a deeper dive into LMA, read How to Be a Great Boss. Written with my co-author, René Boer, it is a complete guide for learning how to become a world-class leader and manager.
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You now map out your entire organization using the Accountability Chart structure. Illustrate all of the functions in your organization and which function they report to, and then list the five major roles of that function. Determine if you have a visionary in your organization. If you do, illustrate it clearly.
As you construct your Accountability Chart, a few words of caution: Create only the structure first. Don’t put any names in any of the boxes yet. In other words, illustrate the correct functions at all levels in the organization. This method will keep you honest with yourself and lead you to the best structure. Once the right structure is set, then put the right people in the right seats. When you choose someone for that seat, you want to be certain that person is operating in his or her Unique Ability®.
When you’re finished, the Accountability Chart should look like an organizational chart, with five bullets that illustrate the major roles of each function. Important note: The Accountability Chart will clarify function, role, and reporting structure, but it will not define communication structure. Your communication should flow freely across all lines and departments where necessary, creating an open and honest culture. With each position’s accountability clear and communication crossing all departments, you will avoid cross-departmental issues. The Accountability Chart should in no way create silos or divisions.
YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM
With the completion of your Accountability Chart, the visionary, if you have one, the integrator, and the people heading up the major functions will become your leadership team. You now have representation and accountability for all the major functions of the business. Now that your leadership team is clearly in place, the next four chapters will address how you meet, prioritize, communicate, report, solve issues, and execute your vision.
GWC
Your completed Accountability Chart clarifies who is accountable for what. With this level of clarity, it’s time to put all the right people into the right seats. To do that you need only one filter: GWC.
GWC stands for get it, wa
nt it, and capacity to do it. GWC is a tool that stemmed from thousands of hours of working with leaders. The concept crystallized for me while sitting in a coffee shop with a client. We were discussing why one of his moves, that of elevating one of his key people to the role of integrator, hadn’t yet borne fruit. He had the right person, but the promotion hadn’t worked. At that moment, the answer to a question that had been bothering me clicked into place. After hundreds of sessions, I suddenly understood why filling seats hadn’t worked for some. I explained the concept of GWC to him. As a result of the clarity GWC gave him, he immediately realized he had made a wrong-seat mistake. The person who got the job had wanted it, but didn’t have the capacity to do it. That person was promptly removed from the role and put in a more suitable position, where he now excels.
The discovery came after observing many who’d been given seats but did not step up and fully assume their roles. These people were not fully performing because one of the three factors was absent. They didn’t get it, didn’t want it, or didn’t have the capacity to do the job.
To reach the next level, you need the people that report to you to be able to take the ball and run with it. When you as their leader or manager clearly articulate the seat (including roles, responsibilities, expectations, and measurables) and present that opportunity, you have created an opening. One of two things will happen as a result: Either they will step up and take charge, or they never will. If they don’t, it’s because one of G, W, or C is missing. In this scenario, you’ll be frustrated, they’ll be frustrated, you’ll never be able to delegate and elevate, and you’ll always be forced to do some or all of their work. Let’s break down these assets one at a time.
Get It
You’ve seen people who get it and people who don’t. “Get it” simply means that they truly understand their role, the culture, the systems, the pace, and how the job comes together. Not everyone gets it. The good news is that there are plenty who do.
Want It
This means they genuinely like the job. They understand the role, and they want to do it based on fair compensation and the responsibility. In many instances, a manager feels the need to motivate, overpay, or beg a person to want it, when the reality is they don’t. Sometimes their ego, your hopes, or their ignorance about what the job entails will lead them to think that they want it. But if they don’t, they’re never going to provide that spark, no matter how effective a manager you are. So stop beating your head against the wall. Find someone who does want it, and the difference will be immediately apparent.
Capacity to Do It
Capacity means having the time as well as the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to do a job well. Sometimes, a position might require a commitment of 55 hours a week where the person is only willing to commit 40. Sometimes the job requires a certain level of intellect, skill, knowledge, and emotional intelligence, and the person doesn’t have that capacity. This is the Peter Principle at its finest, where people are elevated to a level of incompetence.
A “no” on any of these three means it’s not the right seat for the person, it’s not their Unique Ability®. You must not fool yourself on this point. You can occasionally turn a “no” into a “yes” if you’re willing to invest the time and money it takes to elevate a person. However, in most cases, you won’t have the time to wait for them to adjust to the learning curve.
Be careful not to assume you already have people to fill the major functions. Just because they currently have the job doesn’t always mean that they get it, want it, and have the capacity. Using the filter of GWC will keep you honest with yourself.
When Ronnisch Construction Group, a general contractor with revenues of $44 million and 37 employees, started the process, Bernie Ronnisch, the owner and integrator, had a leadership team of four. As an unbiased party, I can tell when someone is not going to cut it on the leadership team very early on, usually well before the integrator sees it. In this case, two out of the four members were not going to make it—that’s 50 percent of the team! We struggled through the tasks of setting quarterly priorities, creating the Accountability Chart, and discovering core values, and then went through several quarters of poor completion on achieving those priorities. In a fit of frustration, I asked the two members directly how committed they were to this process on a scale of 1 to 10. They both gave a 4.
That was all Bernie had to hear to make some tough changes. Though both were very talented, he removed them from the leadership team. One he let go, and the other was moved to a superintendent role and shortly thereafter quit. Bernie replaced them with the right people in the right seats. Eighteen months later, the company grew 50 percent in that calendar year. Once a solid leadership team of five (Bernie added a major function) was firmly in place, they went to work on the rest of the company. Painfully they turned over 40 percent of their employees. As a result, they now have the right people in the right seats organization-wide. Four years after starting The EOS Process, their growth of 70 percent last year put them seventh on the Crain’s Detroit Business list of fastest-growing companies. They were also a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
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I’ve been tracking a statistic over the last 11 years regarding my client leadership team changes in their first two years of implementing EOS. The data shows that 80 percent of the time, there’s a change in the leadership team as a result of this process. This means that most of the time, the leadership team that you start with is not the one you will end up with. Half the time, the change is removing someone from the team, and half the time, it’s adding someone to the team. The point is this: If you’re truly going to commit to building a great company, a strong leadership team, and getting the right people in the right seats, you must prepare for change on your leadership team. However, you may be one of the 20 percent in which there is no change.
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Life is much easier for everyone when you have people around you who genuinely get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it.
With GWC now clear, incorporate it into your People Analyzer. When you’re evaluating your people, the rating on GWC should be a black-and-white “yes” or “no,” unlike the pluses and minuses for core values. You must get a “yes” on all three, or the person is in the wrong seat.
ONE NAME, TWO SEATS
You can have one name in two seats, just not two names in one seat. When an organization first starts out, the founding entrepreneur occupies every seat. He or she is the one name in all seats. He or she is the integrator, the head of sales and marketing, the head of operations, and the head of finance. As the organization grows, new people are brought in to fill the seats needed. For instance, once the entrepreneur reaches capacity, he or she then brings in someone to run operations and is able to let go of that major function.
If you’re at a point where you have people in more than one seat—for instance, your bookkeeper is also your shipping person and your customer service person—that is okay, as long they have enough time to do both jobs well. It’s a matter of the size of the organization. If they or you don’t have enough time to be in all seats, that will have to change. This leads us to the next point.
DELEGATE AND ELEVATE
As your company grows, you have to rise to your Unique Ability®, and the same goes for your leadership team. With your Accountability Chart in place, you can now determine when someone is working at full capacity. Each person only has 100 percent of his or her working time. This 100 percent represents the amount of time each person is willing to work and still maintain balance. For some people, it’s 40 hours per week, and for others, it’s 70 hours. Everyone is different.
When the amount of work requires more than 100 percent to do the job well, say 120 percent, something has to give. This person needs to delegate and elevate the extra 20 percent because he or she is holding the organization back and hitting the ceiling. In some cases, it’s time to move this person into one seat rather than the tw
o he or she is occupying right now. If this person is in one seat, he or she needs to delegate more to other people, realize some efficiency, or eliminate some tasks altogether. At all times, you want to make sure that this person is drawing closer and closer to his or her Unique Ability®.
For example, assume you have a great operations and a great finance person in place, freeing you up from those major functions. Yet your workload is still requiring 120 percent of your time in order to lead and manage your leadership team as the integrator, manage the sales team, sell, and create marketing materials. It’s time to let go of something else. Assuming that leading and managing the leadership team and selling are your Unique Abilities®, you must delegate managing the sales team and creating marketing materials to free up the 20 percent. Delegate to the right person in the right seat and elevate yourself to your Unique Ability®.
When you delegate and elevate, it’s vital that you have the right person in the right seat. If you don’t, you’ll never feel completely comfortable letting go. You must also realize that you have no choice but to delegate. If you’re at 120 percent, you’re holding the organization back and probably starting to burn out. You no longer have the time to fully run the company and manage the sales team well—never mind those other jobs. If the only reason you’re not letting go is because of the person occupying the seat, it’s time to make that tough decision. You can’t keep doing this person’s work for him or her. You can’t keep taking on his or her “monkeys,” as Hal Burrows, William Oncken, Jr., and Kenneth Blanchard illustrated so well in their book, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey.