Business Basics 6: Leadership and Management

I have been reminded this week that so much of business comes down to leadership and management at the top level. In particular the way in which senior people set the values and tone of an organisation. You might call it the predominant meme of the business.

By leadership, I am not thinking of the sort of problems that have been in the papers recently about the role of John Terry as Captain of the England team – whatever the ethics and morals of that situation the management issue there is about relationships within the team.

When I started in consulting one of my drivers was to help improve the status and delivery of purchasing within businesses. My view was that this important function was undervalued, under resourced and misunderstood in many organisations.

This week I was at a seminar at Bradford University on Innovation, which emphasised how easy it is for management to accidentally prevent innovative behaviours in their organisations by not showing behaviours that will encourage innovation, such as experimentation, broad thinking and (that most difficult thing to accept) failure.

It is quite easy to see both of these as functional issues, and indeed tackling them functionally is part of what we do as a consultancy. However it is also clear that the problems of both of these vital business activities can easily arise from failures in general business management and leadership.

Senior managers have difficult and demanding jobs, and naturally they tend to pay the most attention to the areas that they understand in detail – which are usually the areas that they previously worked in. Which is only natural, but some functions then get stuck in a catch-22 like cycle where they get little attention because they are not a route to senior management roles, and therefore no senior manager understands them and gives them special attention.

The senior management also set the tone for communication within the business. A positive outlook can be essential for success in a business, but if that slips into a refusal to listen to negative comments a business may lose the opportunity to solve problems quickly at an early stage. A focus on improving standards may stifle trying out new concepts and ideas. A culture of success may actually encourage staff not to do anything untested in case it is not successful.
It is difficult to get the balance right, but senior managers have to be aware that they set the tone for the business, and that although company culture is a very difficult thing to pin down and measure, it is vital to the success of a business.

Business Basics 5: People buy from people

I haven’t seen Geoff for about 10 years, but he still had my contact details through Linked-in and newsletters. He gave me a call because the multi-national he works for is bidding for some business with a major sporting event, and wondered if I would be able to help. In the end nothing came of it, but it illustrates a key point about business – people buy from people. There are pages of consultants on Google, and in the Yellow Pages if anyone still uses that, but people prefer to buy from people that they know personally and have dealt with before. How do you know whom to choose from a long list of names?

There is always a risk when appointing an unknown supplier. Maybe they will exceed expectations and everyone will be delighted. Or maybe they will be terrible. Who knows? At least with existing suppliers you know what their faults are and where the likely problems are going to be, and can try to manage round them.

On a recent project looking at suppliers for major sporting events we asked event organisers what they were looking for, and almost to a man (or woman) they said a relevant track record. When that track record is wedded to a personal relationship the combination is very strong.

So there is always an inbuilt advantage to suppliers already known to the buyer. You might ask whether tendering processes are meant to eliminate that bias, and in principle they should. In practice knowing a supplier gives a least a tiny, unintentional, unconscious weighting to the scoring and might mean a known supplier getting the benefit of the doubt and an extra point or two that makes all the difference if the scoring is close.

On top of that there is the fact that people tend to get along with people who share similar values, styles and experiences. There is a story that Bill Gates made all the guys at Microsoft where shirts and ties the first time they met IBM, just to make them seem more like IBM then all the tie dyed t-shirted code writers they met on the rest of their trip. If he did, it was a brilliant move.

And the more times you meet someone the more you get to know and understand each other. If there is a clash of personalities – then you had better either change your personality or more realistically get someone else to manage that client. It is the approach that we take with one major client where a clash of personalities was a major problem until we worked out the best people to work together and lead the project on both sides.

So, the key message? Get out there and meet your customers. You never know when they are going to have a need and your name will come to mind. Could be tomorrow (wouldn’t that be nice), or it could be in a decade. You don’t know. But if they don’t know you personally, they will probably go with someone they do know.

Chemical Industry Purchasing & Supply chain course 2012

Rob Milner Associates and PAWA Consulting are running the above course at the Heath Runcorn in February 2010. More details in the flier.

Market Research - open training course 2010

Rob Milner Associates and PAWA Consulting are pleased to announce that we are running a course on Market research, focussing on the Chemicals industry at the Heath in Runcorn in February.
Details in the attachment.

Training Event - Newcastle

I shall be running the Quality and London 2012 workshops again for BiP Solutions on Thursday 26th November 2009, at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead Hotel, which is actually in Gateshead. The event in Leeds had an interesting mix of delegates and both sessions had lively debates. I look forward to similar in Gateshead.

Booking is £75 for each event, details in previous blog.

Training events - Leeds - 2012 and Quality

I shall be running 2 training events for BiP Solutions in Leeds on Wednesday 18th November
The first is "Using Quality Standards to create Competitive Advantage", and the second is "Winning Business through London 2012".

You can attend either event or both, and they are being held at the Jury's Inn, Leeds. Cost is £75 for each half day session.

They can be booked by clicking here.

Procurex 09

I had a very interesting and productive time at the Procurex 09 conference on behalf of BiP solutions. Very busy, and some very interesting discussions at the sessions and on the stand.
Obviously there is a focus on Scottish Procurement, but there were a lot of English and Irish people there as well - and at the Procurex National event in Birmingham in March no doubt there will be even more. I am hoping to write an article about the event with one of the attendees - more details if it comes off.

The presentations from the 2 days (not just mine) are up on the site at
www.procurexscotland.co.uk/day1zone3

Preregistration for 2010 is already on line at

www.procurexscotland.com/2010

I hope to be there.