One of the areas where managers and leaders are criticised is for not giving employees regular and useful feedback.  There might be a whole host of reasons why feedback does not happen on a regular basis, including:

• The manager or leader is focused too much on task

• The manager or leader has never had much feedback themselves so does not recognise the value

• The manager or leader quite simply does not set aside enough time for managing

Given the value of feedback, what are the top tips for giving feedback?

Tip 1: Do it as a matter of routine

One of the easiest ways of ensuring that you give effective feedback is to make it something you do routinely.  Build it into your schedule and make a point of looking out for things on which to provide feedback.

Tip 2:  Be specific

Whenever you give feedback, aim to be as specific as possible with your feedback.  Often, people say things like something was good.  While this might be nice to hear it is not very useful.  On the other hand if you can point to the specific action or behaviour that was good, the recipient of the feedback can use this strength in the future.

Tip 3:  Know the preferences of the feedback recipient

People in the team have different preferences and part of your job as a manager is to know them and respond to them appropriately.  For example, some will appreciate an e-mail; others will appreciate being praised verbally in front of the whole team, while others will want to get praise one to one.

Tip 4: Be yourself

It is important to be yourself rather than putting on an act.  People will see through the latter and will value the feedback less.

Tip 5: Deal with all aspects of feedback

The chances are that you will be providing positive feedback to most people, most of the time.  There will on the other hand situations where you will have to deal with feedback that is negative.  It is important that you are as ready and willing to deal with the difficult stuff as you are the good stuff.

Bottom Line- Giving feedback can be a huge source of motivation and personal development for team members.  So what do you need to be doing differently to give more effective feedback?

So we reached Week 10 of The Apprentice last night.  This week the teams had to select products and sell them on a shopping channel to the public.  The team selling most won the task.

Sir Alan made it clear that the aim of the task was to see who could cope under intense pressure and demonstrate business flair.

The Project Manager for Ignite was Howard with Yasmina (after some debate with Debra) acting as Project Manager for Empire. With only three on each team it was vital that the teams worked well together and there was clear evidence that overall they did.

The two teams took different strategies when it came to product selection.  Empire’s Project Manager made it clear that she did not want to be too risky.  As a result all of the products they chose to sell were low price and selling volume was important.  Ignite by contrast chose a mixture of higher priced and lower priced items.

When it came down to the final numbers, Empire, who had gone for the low value items had a narrow victory and had Debra to thank for selling around £900 of the £1,541.88 sales total.  Ignite had highly credible sales of £1376.73.

As always, there were lessons to learn.

1. Howard was by far the best of the 3 team members on Ignite when it came to the practice audition but despite probably knowing this chose to present with Lorraine.  On hindsight, it might have been a stronger combination to have Lorraine and Kate present the fashion product and the fryer.  Yet Howard should be acknowledged for supporting Lorraine after she struggled with the audition.

2. Yasmina set out a clear strategy of low value, high volume which would have probably helped with the product selection choices.  The absence of a definite strategy on Ignite maybe resulted in them spreading their product mix too widely.

3. Lorraine and Howard’s big downfall was that they spent too much time talking about the product (the fryer) and the chips it produced rather than plugging the phone number and web-site where they could purchase it.

4. The uniqueness of the fryer was that it used very little oil yet we never saw either Lorraine or Howard use this in the selling process.  Maybe a health benefit could have been used and perhaps there was a point about thinking creatively.

5. A good sales person will be able to shift volume of low price products and Debra certainly demonstrated this highly effectively.

6. Team working between the person directing and the person selling is absolutely vital.  If the person directing feeds good ideas to the presenter it really can make a difference.

In the end Kate, Lorraine and Howard found themselves in the boardroom facing Sir Alan knowing that if they survived they were in the semi-final.  In the end Sir Alan fired Howard, referring to him as too much of Steady Eddy for his organisation.

You can watch The Apprentice on BBC1 at 9pm on Wednesday or on the BBCiplayer.

As a manager or leader, chances are that you will have to manage one or more projects.   These projects could range from a small scale internal project to a significant change project.  So how can you become more effective at managing projects?

Tip 1: Set clear goals

Projects are often established in response to a particular challenge or may be in response to a particular new development.  Whatever the reason for setting up a project, make sure goals are clear.

Tip 2: Develop clear plans

You would not set out to make a trip without some form of plan.  So why would you try to complete a project without clear plans.  Make sure that for every project, no matter how small or large, you have clear project plans.

Tip 3: Set milestones

Milestones are stepping stones along the way which allow you to track progress towards completion.  Using our analogy of the trip, you would need to research travel options, possibly book flights, arrange accommodation, pack your suitcase to name just a few.  These are all milestones along the way to a successful trip.

Tip 4: Review regularly and act

All projects have review processes but one difference between those that succeed and those that don’t is that action is taken when things are off course.  They also follow up to make sure that the actions are taken.

Tip 5: Keep project reporting simple

Have you ever received project reports in the form of huge spreadsheets?  While this level of documentation is essential at a project office level, those at a higher level need high level reports on the critical areas.

70% of projects fail to deliver the benefits anticipated at the outset.  By taking some simple but highly effective steps, you can greatly increase the likelihood of creating and delivering successful and sustainable projects.

Many businesses say that people are their greatest asset.  They are certainly the biggest area of expenditure for most businesses and people can be the catalyst for exceptional performance.  So how can you make it happen?

Recruitment

Getting great performance through people starts with recruitment.  Having the right people with the right skills, knowledge and attributes is essential.  Many businesses fail to take this area seriously and as a result spend thousands in continually filling posts.  Make sure this does not happen in your organisation.  Make the investment to train those recruiting and get the right person for the job.

Career Path

If you want to be an employer who recruits and retains the best people, you need to develop clear career paths.  Those that deliver exceptional performance want opportunities to grow, develop, gain new skills, knowledge and experience.  When they know that these opportunities exist they are more motivated and deliver higher performance.

Appraisal

We all need feedback, praise and acknowledgement of the areas where we do well, identification of what we need to work on and the help to make progress.  Appraising someone twice a year takes about 6 hours of time, yet many managers and leaders fail to make that investment.  What’s the cost to you, the team and the business of not making the time for this?  As an example, if you lose someone who is paid £40,000 and you have to pay a finders fee of 25% of the first years salary to a recruiter, that’s £10,000.  What would you want to be known as?  The manager who takes £10,000 off the bottom line or adds £10,000 to the bottom line?

Salaries and Rewards

Contrary to what most managers believe, salary and benefits is not the number one motivator but they are certainly in the top 5.  If you want to deliver exceptional performance, you need to ensure that the remuneration strategies are aligned with this goal.  This does not mean you need to be paying the most, just being competitive.

Skills and Training

The vast majority of employees are interested in growing and developing.  Offering employees the opportunity to develop skills, knowledge or attributes through a development programme is not only a positive motivator but also minimal cost to the business.  Yet I have seen numerous examples of organisations trying to make major change allocating little or nothing to developing people.  In many businesses without people there is no business.  If you want exceptional performance you need continued investment in people.

All businesses need to deliver good performance to thrive in today’s competitive and demanding business environment.  People can be the catalyst so what would have most impact on delivering exceptional performance in your organisation?

As a manager or leader in an organisation, chances are that you will find yourself in the position sooner or later when you are asked to produce a business case.  It might be for example to:

• Secure investment for a new piece of equipment

• Get support for an increase in your staffing establishment

• Get support for a new product or service

For many managers and leaders, the thought of producing a business case fills them with worry.  By following a systematic step by step process set out below, you can produce a winning business case and get the outcome you desire.

State the current position

The first thing you need to do is provide a brief summary of the current position for the area being addressed.  By far the most effective way is to focus on the problems being created or the opportunities missed.  For example:

• If bidding for new equipment you might talk about the capacity constraints or efficiency gains

• If bidding for new staff you might focus on the revenue your competitors have that is low hanging fruit and could easily come to you with some staff investment

• If it is a new product or service, you can focus on the gap in the offerings and how what you are proposing will fill it

The underlying message here is to create a case why the current position is less than ideal.

Make your case

There are two main things to consider in making your case.

1. Operational or business case

2. Financial case

It is essential that your case is robust in both of these areas; otherwise you run the risk of getting shot down in flames.

When making the operational case, really focus on the benefits.  Questions to ask your self include:

• How will this impact on our sales volumes

• How will it contribute to processing efficiencies

• How will it give an edge over competitors

• How will it impact on client/customer satisfaction

• How will it impact on employees

• How will it contribute to environmental issues

• How will it contribute to social responsibilities

In making the financial case, think about:

• How long the investment will take to get pay back, usually measured in years. 

• The projected percentage return on the investment, usually measured as a percentage.  Some businesses have a minimum percentage return on investment so find this out

• The impact on profitability, as a result of increased sales revenue and/or cost reduction

In doing this it is best to produce summary tables in the main body of the business case and the detail in an appendix

Produce a benefits realisation plan

One of the areas often neglected is the benefits realisation area.  You may be familiar with this.  A case is made promising the world but it never materialises. 

Clearly state the benefits that will be delivered and how you will measure achievement.  Make sure that your benefits are very specific and measurable.  For example, increase customer satisfaction scores by 10% compared to 2006 by the end of December 2007 is specific.  Increase customer satisfaction is not specific or measurable.
 
Produce a risk management plan

The business case is based on the best information that you can access at the time.  Chances are that some risks will show up.  Include a simple risk matrix showing the:

• Risk

• Proposed handling strategy

• Estimated financial impact if the risk materialises

This will demonstrate to any decision makers that not only are you thinking about downside risks but also pro-actively managing them.

Develop a performance monitoring framework

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of taking your eye of the ball when you get the green light for the financial support.  Avoid this at all costs.  Put in place a strong framework for monitoring progress and producing any reports that are required.

At the end of the day, your ability to secure investment is down to you being able to present a well structured and thought out case.  Use this simple step by step approach to give you a flying start.

Last night we reached week 9 of The Apprentice in the UK.  With only three weeks remaining and 7 candidates left the pressure is mounting.

This week the teams were given a stand at the Baby Show in London.  They had to interview suppliers, choose two products and sell them at the Baby Show the following day.  The team that sold most won the task.

Sir Alan chose the Project Managers for the two teams.  James was PM for Empire and Lorraine the PM for Ignite.

Empire gambled on a high end highly expensive rocking horse as one of their products and a home birthing pool as their lower end product.

Ignite went for a buggy which folded down so small that it could be taken on an aeroplane as hand luggage as their main product.  They also chose a safety helmet as a low cost impulse buy item.

Back in the boardroom when the sales were revealed, Ignite emerged as winners with sales of £1,669 compared to £722 for Empire.

As ever there were many lessons arising from the show:

1. Product research is important and from what we saw both teams did that quite well.

2. In terms of decision making, the teams weighed up the pros and cons and made their choices with little evidence of procrastination.

3. The smaller teams meant that there was much more willingness to work together and little or no bickering.

4. Sometimes you do need to be willing to take a risk.  The rocking horse was a risk but had Empire sold just one, they would have easily won the task.

5. If Empire and in particular Debra and Ben made one mistake with the rocking horse it was not negotiating a baby show special discount.

6. Lorraine the PM of Ignite only realised that she did not have exclusive rights to sell the buggy at the show when she saw it in the booth of another supplier.  On the other hand, when challenged about this by Sir Alan, she took responsibility and admitted that she had made a mistake.  Probably the most powerful demonstration of personal responsibility taking this series.

7. As PM, Lorraine showed that she had faith in the team’s selling ability and demonstrated that despite differences with Kate in the past, she was mature and professional enough to move on.

When it came to the final choice, Ben, James and Debra were the three who were at risk of being fired.  Sir Alan made his choice and it was Ben who was fired.

You can watch The Apprentice every Wednesday at 9pm on BBC1 or on the BBCiplayer.

How often have you heard people say that some people are just born leaders? 

While some people might have some attributes that can help them to more easily make the transition to leadership, truth is leadership skills can be developed.

There are a number of ways of doing this:

1. Going on a course
2. Getting a coach or mentor
3. Shadowing a senior person
4. Reading books
5. Reading e-zines
6. Listening to podcasts
7. Taking a formal qualification

Top Tip: Don’t buy into the myth that leaders are born

Imagine you have just been brought into an organisation with the specific goal of making a step change in the performance of the organisation or a specific team, function or project.   Chances are that people around the organisation will be thinking that you are superman or superwoman and that you have some magic wand that is going to fix everything.  The reality, as you know is somewhat different.  So what is it important to do to manage expectations?

Be Totally Honest

Any situation that requires a step change in performance is not going to be something small.  As a result it is important that you are totally honest with people about the size of the challenge and that there is no magic bullet.  Get clear on your message and stick to it.  Make sure that others in your leadership team are clear on the message and stick to it.

Set Realistic Timescales

One of the temptations is to promise timescales that are neither plausible nor achievable.  The best leaders recognise this and set themselves timescales that are going to be seen as others as realistic and position them as totally grounded.  When they are seen as realistic and grounded it builds trust and confidence in them.  This can be particularly useful when it comes to handling media expectations.

Communicate Regularly

It is no use just communicating the vision and then thinking that the communication is done.  This should be the start of a rolling programme of communication that keeps people up to date with the progress and achievements.

Avoid Promises

If you have a situation where you are having to cut costs in order to achieve the step change in performance, employees and their representatives might be looking for promises around job losses.  As the leader you must resist the temptation to avoid making promises that you cannot keep.

Bottom Line – If you are a leader who is tasked with making a step change in performance, managing expectations is a key pillar in your success.  So what do you need to do differently to manage expectations?

1. It  takes too long
2. I can do it quicker myself
3. I tried in the past and it failed
4. I will lose control
5. I don’t trust my staff to deliver

What else would you add to the list of excuses?

1. It is after the event and historical
2. It is rarely real time
3. It is subject to accounting rules which can lead you to believe that you are doing okay (because you are in profit) when you don’t have cash to meet obligations
4. Money by itself creates nothing.  It is what you do with it that results in creativity
5. No financial managers don’t make the connection between what they do operationally and money