You think you have made all the right moves to ensure the firm is in good hands when you leave or retire. You have a candidate lined up to move into place and your customers and suppliers know what is happening. Sounds good but what now?

The tough part…Transitioning the top role in a smooth and thoughtful way is a key step often missed!

So where do you start? How about a short self-evaluation?

Are you truly ready to leave your role? Many senior leaders who have been in the role for some time cannot separate themselves from the firm easily, resulting in potential conflict with the new candidate or the firm’s different stakeholders. A structured transition plan with coaching resources to help ease your way out is a big step forward. Next item to consider is do you have an established timeline? Working yourself out of a role in a deliberate and orderly fashion is very hard for some to consider but that is exactly what has to happen. I could write a book about owners, general managers and senior executives who said they were ready to leave, prepare their replacements and staff only to return to the organization regularly to check on “how the new guy is doing”. In most cases the transition plan if any did not assess the old leader’s needs and generally turned out badly for all parties. Customers and staff are at particular at risk when this happens as they are often left confused, presenting a big risk to the future of the company.

So the advice goes like this at a minimum:

• Evaluate your own needs to transition properly early on
• Establish a detailed timeline/transition plan and communicate it to stakeholders.
• Take full responsibility for the initial success of the new leader just as you would have for any new project you managed
• Finally, celebrate success when you hand off your responsibilities in a responsible and supportive way. Not all transitions are managed well, so be the exception!

David Rankin

Often, businesses and other organizations have policies and procedures that make sense. But there are ALWAYS contradictions, conundrums and problems that arise, usually with unintended consequences, and often with comic effect.

A real-life example: 

Company ‘A’ had reasonable selling terms and conditions (‘terms’); and a policy not to deviate from them without CEO approval.  While terms are often mundane & boring, there are often contentious issues that are critical:  ownership of IP, consequential damages, unlimited liability, warranty period, etc.  Unfortunately, while company A was fairly large with some market power, most of their customers were significantly larger, and most customers had purchasing terms far less fair to the vendor than to the buyer.  Most of those customers were also very large accounts that the various operating businesses couldn’t do without.  Adding further irony, A’s own purchasing terms towards their own vendors were very one-sided (guess which side).    So, life was good, as long as the operating people didn’t really know about (or at least said they didn’t) the requirement not to deviate on selling terms.   

‘A’ had been doing business with company ‘B’, on B’s terms, for many, many years.  B’s terms were unfavourable to A, but B was a large and profitable account.  And certainly the Sales people were petrified to ask for CEO approval for a deviation on orders from customer ‘B’.   But, alas, one day, corporate became aware the policy was being ignored, and the word went out to fix the problem.  Company A’s lawyer suggested just ignoring the customer’s terms and sending out A’s standard terms when acknowledging orders, even though that was expressly prohibited by customer B.  (The previous practice was just to stamp customer B’s PO with an acknowledgment stamp, accepting the order on B’s terms.)  The Sales Manager was asked for his opinion; particularly whether he thought the customer would be upset.  His answer:  “… well, they’ll be upset, but only if they read it.    If they don’t read it, they won’t be upset.  Maybe we should just replace the old stamp with a new one:  ‘PLEASE DO NOT READ THE ATTACHED - because if you read it, you will be upset’ … “. 

The Sales Manager was joking, but he was between a rock and a hard place:  he couldn’t ignore his corporate bosses, but he also didn’t want to jeopardize a large, profitable account, where his ability to negotiate was hampered by his customer’s market power.

So, what’s the moral?  Policies, even if sensible – and let’s face it, not all policies reflect reality – can’t be rigidly enforced unless the business has market power.  If you have less market power, you have to be more flexible, and try other ways to mitigate the higher risks; or, in the limit you have to accept and price in (if you can) those risks, or abandon the account.  A stamp that says ‘do not read the attached’, while funny, won’t usually solve the problem.

Don Weaver

I have always been a big believer that vacation is extremely important. But I recently read about a research study out of Indiana University that gave this a new perspective.

Psychologist Lile Jia divided a few dozen undergraduate students into 2 groups and asked both to list as many modes of transportation as they could think of. He told one group of students that this task had been developed by students at Indiana, and the other a group of students in Greece. Surprisingly, there was a significant difference in the results from the two groups.

The group who thought the task originated in Greece came up with far more modes of transportation. Instead of just buses, trains and planes, they also came up with horses, spaceships, bicycles and Segway scooters. The conclusion that was drawn from these results was that the students felt less constrained by their local transportation options because the problem came from far away.

By intentionally getting away from work, we can actually free ourselves to think differently about our business. When we are “a million miles away” from work, we are more likely to see things more clearly.

Sheila Hamilton

This week the news emerged that Elections Ontario has improperly managed the data of 2 million or so Ontario voters and has “lost” our personal data. Apparently back in April, a couple of USB drives went missing from an Elections Ontario office, and they contained information collected about voters provided during the election last fall.

First, we’re going to set aside the issue of timing – that this breach occurred back in April and the news is only coming out now. This feels to me like a pretty big gap in accountability, but that’s a topic for another day

Second, we’re also going to ignore the notion that the likelihood of the data being misused is low – apparently due to the specialized software used to manage this data. While this possibly is true, I would never underestimate the capabilities of a determined hacker to be able to decode the data.  Further, what data was lost and how much damage can be done with it is not really the point, particularly if you happen to be one of the people whose data was on the drives.

But more practically, what happened here?

It seems that a number of “paper procedures” had been established but were not followed by employees.  And no audits appear to have been done to ensure the procedures were being followed. And finally, it seems that the significance of securing this data was not sufficiently impressed on at least a couple of Elections Ontario employees.

What does this mean for your organization?

First, have some security procedures – including but by no means limited to:

Personal data about customer or clients or citizens should not be put on a USB drive as a matter of policy, and if there are some exceptional circumstances, they should be depersonalized or encrypted at minimum.

Strong passwords should be required to get into any system containing personal data, and users should be forced to change them regularly.

Encryption software for laptops should be installed and activated.

Materials should be secured when users are not there – screen locks, laptops and USB devices stored in locked drawers, and so on.

Secondly, test the procedures and audit users behavior.  If that means something as silly sounding as walking around the office and checking, just do it.  If phones or blackberries are supposed to be password protected, check them to make sure.

Finally, ensure staff know the procedures, understand why they are there and the implications of them not being followed (both to the organization and to them personally) as it is at the personal level that security is most effectively implemented.

Christy DeMont

T’is the season for selling replacement air conditioners and furnaces. Hydro One, Toronto Hydro and Direct Energy have all lobbed offers at me this month.
 
Direct Energy pitch me that  if I install a new forced air gas furnace it will save me some $868 a year including $340 in electricity. If you run your furnace fan motor year ‘round the electrical saving grows to  about $500. A new furnace costs about $6000 installed.

For about $600 you can retrofit the existing furnace fan motor and still save the $340 or $500 a year. Looks like a better investment to me, pays back in less than 2 years, takes about an hour to install and I have the $600 in my jeans.

But alas the electric utilities, and their minder the Ontario Power Authority, only pays their $250 grant for installing a new gas furnace not for just saving on electricity!  Time for a head shake?

Imagine Canada reports that in 2003 there were 45,000 not-for-profit/charitable organizations in Ontario or 369 per 100,000 population.  Since 2003, the number of organizations has grown despite the challenges facing these organizations:   Ontario’s difficult fiscal environment, increasing demands for transparency and accountability by both stakeholders and funders, a shortage of skilled volunteers and a deficit in experienced senior management staff.  Seventy five per cent of not-for-profit agencies in Canada have fewer than 10 staff.  Virtually all agencies are facing challenges recruiting volunteer board members who have the requisite skills and expertise to govern.

The not-for-profit sector is a vital contributor to the Ontario economy and for this reason the sector needs to remain vibrant and sustainable.  The vast majority of not-for-profit agencies are found in the health and social services sectors.  Faced with these significant challenges, one should ask the question:  Why are so few agencies actively engaged in examining strategies for merging their talent with the talent of like minded agencies and move into a position of enhanced sustainability?

I would suggest that there are a number of reasons.  Agencies do not want to lose their independence and their “mark”.  They don’t want to lose their history.  Often times, they don’t want to lose power and control.    Perhaps they don’t see the benefits or feel the driving need to talk about merging or amalgamating.  Perhaps they are waiting for additional government funding to ensure their stability.  Perhaps they don’t know how to approach a discussion with another agency or group of agencies.  Or, perhaps they will wait until forced to seek alternatives.

The integration of agencies does not have to be a win/lose proposition.  There are many proven strategies that can be employed to ensure that agencies engaged in “joining up” will be highly successful and stable organizations at the end of the process.   However none of these strategies will work unless a leader emerges that asks the question “Why Not?”.  

Susan Bihun

The strategic plan is the engine that drives the company in the right direction. It’s taken for granted that marketing, sales and operations will develop specific strategies to drive the overall plan – but what about HR?   If HR doesn’t have an effective strategic plan then your engine is not running on all cylinders.

In most organizations today, salaries and benefits are the biggest expense and employees are the primary asset, even if not recognized on the balance sheet. An effective HR strategic plan will help ensure your organization is getting value for its investment.

Consider the key elements of your HR strategy that will support or hinder your goals:

• Is your compensation strategy aligned with your current goals?  Do you need to pay average salaries or above the market to attract and retain good people?  Are your benefits competitive?  Where do incentives fit?  Do employees understand the compensation program?

•  Does your recruitment strategy support the organization’s goals?  Are you hiring people who fit with your culture and values?  What future skills will you need to achieve your goals?

• Will your training and development strategy deliver the skills and competencies necessary to achieve the plan and at what expense?

• Do your performance management systems drive results?

• Does HR have the systems necessary to measure results and to keep management up to date?

• Does your workplace and environment support the goals?  Does it need to be more collaborative or less?  Do employees like coming to work?  How flexible should your policies be – one size fits all versus individual treatment, or a balance?

If you haven’t asked these questions or revised your HR strategy lately, it may be time for a tune-up.    Employees are an organization’s most important asset and an effective HR strategy will help ensure the organization arrives at its desired destination.

Donna Brazelton