Improve My Business

Earlier this week I posted about the importance of trust in business relationships and I wanted to take a minute to look at a current case study about trust. I want to talk about the Toyota recall and the surrounding accusations, questions, concerns and general hype. A quick survey of the news and blog outlets on the internet earlier this week revealed a ton of comments, articles and posts questioning Toyota’s actions in the matter of its recall. Cleary Toyota is experiencing a trust issue right now, but how did they get here?

The first thing to note is that of course, like anything else on the internet, some of these posts can’t be considered un-biased or completely factually accurate. Putting that aside though, there are definitely some serious concerns about how Toyota has handled this recall. If you doubt that Toyota has done anything wrong then consider this, based on the comments of people like Ray LaHood, the US Transportation Secretary, it is no longer a question of whether or not Toyota will be fined for the way they handled the problem, now it is just a question of when and how much.

So step one in the loss of trust is that Toyota made a bad product that has serious and life threatening problems. This is certainly not a good way to build trust with consumers, but this Toyota recall isn’t the first time cars have been recalled for serious problems. Since 1999 Ford has recalled 14 million vehicles due to a faulty cruise control that was prone to catching fire, and best of all, the car didn’t even have to be running for it to happen. However, if you search online for comments about the Ford recall you won’t find the same kind of response that you see to the Toyota recall. So what is it about this Toyota recall that has created such a crisis of trust?

Where Toyota really went wrong is that they tried to hide the facts, they ignored our number one rule for building trust in relationships and didn’t listen to their own better judgment. Anyone can understand that if you found out about a problem with your product as big as the one Toyota is having now with the acceleration issue you would need to handle the situation carefully, but I think unanimously everyone would agree that the right thing to do would be to tell the customers about the problem. Which Toyota eventually did, but it took a lot of pushing and numerous complaints for Toyota to issue the recall. This does not look good for Toyota, it makes it look like they were trying to hid the fact that car had a problem and hope that no one noticed. This may not have been what was actually going on, but what matters in building trust are appearances.

Beyond the delayed response to the issue, further problems have arisen because Toyota hasn’t been very upfront with consumers sense issuing the recall. There is still confusion about what is really causing the problem and what Toyota is doing to fix it, there are actually at least two different issues that Toyota has issued recalls for, and some people believe there may yet be a third cause of the problem. Toyota executives are not building trust even though they need to be doing everything they can to salvage what little trust people still have in them. Toyota was once revered as the pinnacle of quality, and in just a few short weeks there are questions about the company’s ability to continue in this country.

To me this serves as a perfect example of what will happen if you don’t listen to your sense of right and wrong and try to hide things. Eventually, it will come out, and it will make you look worse than if you just admitted the problem in the first place. Maintaining and building trust must be our first concern in business relationships. Hopefully we can all learn from Toyota’s mistakes and realize that putting trust first, sometimes means doing difficult things. Like admitting that you made a bad product.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business Relationships, quality, Trust

January has already sped past us launching us straight into February, I hope you have gotten a great start to 2010. Being that it is February and this is a month were a lot of us spend a little extra time thinking about our personal relationships around Valentine’s day, I have decided to call this Relationship Month  and devote several posts this month to talking about relationships in business. Relationships are the heart of everything we do as people; celebrating, mourning, living, working, it is all about relationships, so I think it is only right that we devote so time here to talk about how to make sure you are forming the right kind of relationships in your business.

The first thing I want to talk about is trust. Any relationship councilor will tell you that trust is one of the cornerstones of a healthy relationship. If you can’t trust someone you can’t have a valuable relationship with them. You will be too busy trying to figure out if they are telling the truth or not to really appreciate them as a person and you won’t feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with them. This is doubly true when we start thinking about business relationships and money comes into the picture.

For better or worse most of us value our money above almost everything else these days, and thus we are very protective of our money. We would never give our money to someone we don’t trust and we can’t expect our customers to give us money unless they trust us. To be successful in business you need to have a network of trust with your suppliers, partners and clients. So how do we build trust with our clients, and find suppliers and partners we can trust? The answer believe it or not, is pretty simple. Trust yourself.

Most people have a pretty good sense of what is right and wrong, and who is telling the truth and who isn’t telling the whole story. The problem is we don’t trust ourselves enough to listen. Trust yourself to follow your instincts, if something seems like it will create ill-will or somehow cause someone to doubt the trust they place in you, don’t do it. If a supplier approaches you and you don’t feel one hundred percent comfortable, chances are it’s your mind trying to tell you that this supplier isn’t trust worthy, listen to it and ask the questions you need to ask to find out what is making you uncomfortable. Trusting ourselves and listening to our instincts will go a long way towards finding trustworthy people to associate with and making decisions that will build trust with our customers.

The second very important thing we can do is to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. A great place to do this is marketing. In marketing you try to highlight the best benefits your product can provide and explain to potential customers why they should bring their business to you. However, the key factor in converting prospects into customers is trust. If prospects trust you, they are more likely to do business with you, and if they don’t trust you, chances are they will never do business with you. So when you put out a marketing piece, don’t just think, “Does this inform people about my product?” but, “Will this make people trust me/my company/my product?”

To do this, you need to put yourself in the prospective customer’s shoes when you look at your marketing. Ask yourself if there are any questions that you want to have answered after seeing the marketing materials, or if anything seemed out of place or disingenuous to you. Chances are that if something seems off to you, it will seem off to your prospects as well and immediately put doubt in them. Always be aware of how you are affecting the trust other people have in you and your business when you act, if you don’t you may find it very hard to find new clients before long, because no one will trust you.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business Relationships, Marketting, Trust

There is a bunch of research out there promoting the idea that laughter can improve productivity, and given what we discussed earlier this week about attitude, I decided today I would help lighten things up a bit by posting some funny productivity cartoons.

Hope these help improve your personal productivity for the day.

Technorati Tags: efficiency, humor, managing your time, working smarter

We all know that the hours in the day are numbered and that we need to make the most of them. So here are some tips that I have been using to increase my personal productivity.

1. Batch your E-mails. If your like me and most of the people in my office you have an almost constant stream of E-mails coming in. The temptation is to open them all as soon as they arrive. I realized that for me at least this meant stopping what I was doing and shifting my focus on average once every 15-20 minutes throughout the work day. This was very disruptive, particularly when there was something I wanted to read further in the E-mail and it wound up being a long distraction from the task I had been working on. The solution I have found is batching my E-mail reading into groups. Basically I keep my E-mail open, but don’t read any messages unless something urgent comes in that needs immediate attention. Instead I let things build up and then just before lunch and again just before I sign off for the evening I read through everything. I find this gives me longer blocks of un-interrupted time to focus on getting the important things I need to do done, without completely ignoring what is going on in my E-mail.
2. Pick one big thing every day and do it first. For me if I have a lot of things on my to do list I find that I often avoid the big ones and do all the little “quick wins” first. While this does shorten the list, it still leaves those big projects out there looming, and by the time I have done all the little things I often don’t have the mental energy to tackle a big project. To combat this I have started coming into the office each day, having picked out one large item from my to do list to tackle that day. I start my day off by first checking to make sure no urgent messages came in overnight, then getting right to work on my one big thing for the day. I don’t check E-mails, or make phone calls, or do anything else until I have knocked out my one big task. This has two benefits for me. First it gets those big tasks off the to do list in a timely manner, and second, I find myself having more energy throughout the day because I know that I have already accomplished something big and don’t have the stress of trying to find the energy late in the day to do a big project.
3. Have a defined plan. Beyond picking your one thing, I have also found it helpful to have a defined plan for the week. In other words I try to look at what I need to get done and slot it all into my week. This way I am not sitting here on Tuesday afternoon or worse on Thursday staring at my to do list and wondering how I am ever going to get it all done. I know how it is going to get done because I have already budgeted the time in my head. Of course my schedule gets shifted around a little bit as things come up, and it is important to remain flexible, but knowing what is on your list and what kind of time commitment it takes, then figuring out where you can make that time commitment can help overcome the feeling of overwhelm that comes with big to do lists.
4. Attitude is everything. Having a better attitude at work makes you more productive. If you feel like you have been productive you will continue to be more productive. This is what is really behind the other tips I have listed here, they all help me feel productive, which improves my attitude, and makes me more productive. Sometimes you even need to go so far as to force yourself to change your attitude, even if it seems superficial at first. If you tell yourself you have lots of energy and are ready to get something done, before you know it, it will be true. On the other hand if you sit around all day dreaming about a nap, you’re just going to make yourself more tired. So take a minute every now and then to check in on your attitude towards work and adjust it as needed.

Technorati Tags: efficiency, email, goals, improvement, managing your time, Planning, Time Management, working smarter

There are several key differences between being a manager and a leader. For people running their own business or acting as parts of a management structure in a larger business it is important to recognize the differences between managing and leading and use these different methods appropriately. The biggest difference between managing and leading is that managers push groups to achieve specific goals while leaders pull groups in a general direction, letting the group decide on the specific goals.

When you are managing a group you are looked at for direction and answers, you are the driving force or push behind your team. Managers are focused on individual contributions and making sure that everyone on the team is doing exactly what they need to be doing to achieve the specified goal. At critical junctures in the process the team will defer to the manager to steer them in the right direction. All major decisions are made by the manager of a team.

Leaders on the other hand let the team make their own decisions. Instead of pushing the team into specific solutions, a leader pulls the team toward the goal, letting the team figure out the best way to get there. As a leader your role is not to provide the answers but to facilitate the team in coming up with their own answers. Leaders are more concerned with the overall functioning of the team and the relations between team members then the individual tasks of each member of the team.

Clearly each of these styles has its place and it is important as a team lead to recognize when you need to manage your team and when you need to lead them. Typically as employees grow more accustomed to the business they need less management and more leading. As an employee grows comfortable with her daily tasks she no longer needs someone looking over her shoulder, however she does need someone motivating her and this is where a great leader will excel. On the other side new employees don’t need motivation and leadership as much as they need someone there telling them how to do their new job.

This is not to say that only new employees need management, or that experienced employees will always excel with great leadership. As a team lead it is up to you to figure out what the members of your team need from you, and typically this means walking a line somewhere in between managing and leading. At times it will be important to be the task master and manage the members of your team, however if you default to this mode you will stifle the creativity of your team members and will not be allowing them to achieve their best. So at time is it important to take on the role of the leader and let the team figure out the solution, again though it is important to not go too far in this direction. If left completely to their own devices employees may wind up off track or pursuing ideas that are not practical for the current situation, it is your job to step in and make sure this doesn’t happen.

I encourage you to take a look at your current management practices and skills and see where you fall, are you more of a manager or a leader, and then examine the effects this may be having on your team. Considering trying the opposite approach from how you typically interact with your team and see how they respond. It may be that some of your employees have been waiting for an opportunity to be more creative, or have needed more direction in the workplace. The important thing to remember is that, as a team lead, you need to always be monitoring your team members and tailoring your interactions with them to help them achieve their best. This is the true goal of any leader, whether she is managing or leading, she is always trying to bring out the best in those around her.

Technorati Tags: Business, communication, leadership, problem solving