Your Outlook for the New Year
In 2010 a topical discussion nearly always included the economic outlook; housing sales, retail sales, interest rates, inflation, unemployment, the impact of changing regulations on business. As we enter 2011, I am curious to know, ‘what is YOUR outlook’ for the new year?
I am a firm believer that we must first ‘visualize’ success in order to fully ‘realize’ it. Visualization is the ability to form mental images and ‘see’ the end result before it has occurred. Success is a personal definition and is meaningful to the individual who owns it.
In Vistage we question each other to determine whether we are visualizing the ‘green or the hazard’. You can bet Tiger Woods, with his record, visualizes landing the ball on the green. Michael Jordan speaks of his intentioned focus on visualizing where he wanted to go—and then focused on getting there. A commonality among people who are successful at visualizing then achieving their goals is the fact that they surround themselves with people and engage in activities that support their vision. We all know of people who may view the world as ‘the glass is half empty’, versus ‘half full’. In order to keep ourselves on track and recognize the power of positive energy, in my family—and on the Helios team– when we catch each other making a statement that may appear less than optimistic, we use a code phrase as a reminder when things could be viewed with a bit more optimism. Negative Nellies and Debbie Downers are the enemy of success. I don’t mean to imply that a healthy dose of reality isn’t appropriate in order to mitigate risk. However only focusing on the obstacles (the hazard) rather than imagining all the possibilities (the green), is certain to minimize a truly successful outcome.
Have you taken into account how full your glass is in this coming year? I encourage you, as you plan and implement your 2011 goals, to visualize and assume the best possible outcome. What strategic relationships and supporters will you need to realize your goals? Who are those people that give you energy? Spend more time with them. What events or activities are you actively engaging in that will give you energy and renewed focus on achieving your vision? I encourage you to be selective!
Wishing you a healthy, prosperous new year filled with gratitude, success and fun.
Warmly ~ Kathy Albarado
Dean Matt - Designing Your Destiny
Throughout grade school, Matthew Dean had always excelled effortlessly at mathematics. One can thus imagine his surprise and horror when his ninth grade math teacher recommended him for the second best math class instead of the best. High school had raised the bar somewhat in terms of demand and standards, and the boy’s diligence had not yet escalated along with it. Though the packs of football pencils given out as prizes for elementary school math competitions were a thing of the past, Matt found a brand new source of motivation—his own willpower, and his own destiny. Determined, he asked Mr. Burns what he could do to maintain his status in the highest class. “You must ace the second half of this school year,” the teacher said. Matt rose to the challenge and excelled with flying colors, and true to his word, Mr. Burns changed his recommendation.
From this experience, Matt drew so much more than just a renewed drive for math, which carried him through to receive his master’s degree in engineering later on. Beyond the specific skill, the challenge cemented in him something he had always known in his soul but hadn’t actually firmed into a concrete guiding principle. “Nobody’s going to give you anything or carry you. You’ve got to get out there and do it yourself,” he confirms. Now the President of MARKON Inc, a government contracting and consulting company specializing in management solutions, Matt could not have gotten to where he is today without this revolutionizing conviction in personal agency.
MARKON is a spinoff of MKI Systems, which has since been purchased by L-3’s Command & Control Systems and Software (C2S2) Division. Matt assumed employment at MKI, a full-service professional organization focusing in the needs of the Marine Corps, in 2005 to help diversify the company into the intelligence community market. He started his division as a one-man show which grew to nine team members by 2007 when L-3 decided to purchase the enterprise. The new ownership wasn’t interested in an intelligence division, and Matt was not interested in the new ownership, so MARKON was born. When they first spun off, they specialized in providing consultant services to the intelligence community and were earning $1.2 million in revenues. Just a few short years later, they are now over forty employees strong and have amplified revenues to $7 million, fanning out across industries through the translatability of their knowledge base.
Being the professional services company that it is, MARKON essentially sells time and manpower to federal government organizations with the goal of improving functionality through the use of professional resources. The feature tool in this arsenal is project management, and MARKON’s ability to capture key processes and replicate them across subjects has played a vital role in its success. “Our business model has been to serve across government agencies because our method is translatable,” Matt explains. “The Army, Marine Corps, CIA, NSI, DIA, DNI, etcetera—the same types of skills are valuable across all these markets.”
MARKON’s real value lies not in its method, however, but in its matter. “The motivation of our people to succeed is what truly makes us unique,” Matt acknowledges. His team, which is monitored by seven managers, understands the intricacies and nuance of the business that allow them to play the game with unparalleled expertise and offer exceptional service while still balancing the business aspects of the work.
The fascinating thing about Matt’s success is that it doesn’t stem from outside influence, but rather from a strong internal locus of control that marked his comportment even at an early age. Throughout his youth, he doesn’t remember being pushed or micromanaged when it came to academics or athletics. It was always expected that he and his three brothers should maintain good grades and attend college, but his parents, who divorced when he was ten, did not actively talk about the future. Matt’s mother had chosen to focus on her family and her children instead of pursuing her career, and this fact serves as a strong source of motivation in his life and work today. “My mom chose not to take her career into her own hands as a sacrifice for us kids,” he remarks. “If I don’t take full advantage of the opportunities in my life, I’m wasting what she gave me.”
Matt’s first handful of jobs were acquired throughout his high school years and revolved around construction, most notably for Cates Electric. The manual labor was intensive, with one particular instance standing out in his mind in which he was required to dig holes and insert grounding rods for a major electrical system. His first rod took him eight hours of backbreaking labor to install due to the ground’s impenetrable quality—a disheartening end product that only hinted at the effort required to obtain it. When he reported his single accomplishment to a coworker later that day, the man shrugged his shoulders knowingly. “Yes, you will work hard, but it never really amounts to anything,” the laborer told Matt. This remark emblazoned into his mind a strong resolve to do well in college, taking pains to ensure that he set himself up for a professional journey instead of a professional dead-end.
After starting college at Virginia Tech, Matt acquired a job in database building assistance at the World Bank’s Facilities Group. “I wore a shirt and tie to work for the first time,” he remembers. “It was my first chance to experience a real office job.” When he graduated in 1991 with an Industrial Engineering Degree, he found the job market somewhat barren. After a slew of interviews, he was finally offered a government position with the Department of the Navy as a program analyst in a cost analysis shop. In this capacity, he served to assist different Navy programs in mapping out current costs and predicting future expenses. This was essentially his entrance into the government acquisition and support world while also giving him first-hand training in the client service environment as he worked to develop relationships with different customers.
Though he would receive frequent accolades on his performance excellence, Matt was barred from promotion because he didn’t have seniority, and he was turned off by the lack of control over one’s own destiny that the atmosphere engendered. Not only had he reached the kind of dead end he had vowed to avoid, but his personal learning and evolution had come to a standstill. “I realized I wasn’t going to be gaining any additional skills after the first five years, and I didn’t like the resigned attitude that the system is the system,” he recalls. “Realistically, I knew I couldn’t change the system, so my only option was to take my career into my own hands.”
With that, he left to enter the Big Six management consulting world through employment at KPMG Consulting, which became BearingPoint in 2002. Throughout his nine years of employment there, Matt served as a management consultant in a wide variety of industries. The experience allowed him to see how many skills can be translated to different markets and environments, honing his insight for his later leadership with MARKON. BearingPoint’s decrescendo commenced in the early 2000’s with its transition from a partnership model to a public company model. Aware of the writing on the wall, Matt left for MKI Systems in 2005 before BearingPoint’s collapse and eventual merger with Deloitte Consulting.
Despite its impressive evolution and diversification, MARKON’s story is far from complete. “We’re still a new company and haven’t finished setting the foundation yet,” Matt says. True to his upbringing, which focused on a general striving for accomplishment rather than a specific micromanaged path toward success, he remarks, “I don’t feel like I have to hit a certain figure in revenue to accomplish a given goal. Rather, I just focus on making good, smart decisions.” Not only does this approach lead to reasoned judgments and solid returns, but it heightens team morale by instilling sound confidence within MARKON’s employees.
Now, as the company’s past performance record and reference list grows, Matt and his team are working on building the company’s accounting system and overhead infrastructure as they begin to aim their targets on bigger fish. “The sky’s the limit,” Matt says lightheartedly. “I’m particularly excited because it gives opportunities to our employees to expand their skills, almost as if they’re running mini MARKONs themselves.” This mindset showcases the leadership philosophy that drives the enterprise—one of interconnected fates and genuine interest in the success of others. “It’s all about the team approach,” Matt explains. “I truly believe that the best way for me to be more successful is for my employees to enjoy this success as well.”
In advising others along this quest for collective success, Matt urges the kind of openness and awareness that has kept him in perpetual evolution over the years, both personally and professionally. His method echoes what seems to be a current trend in American society toward life-long personal skill strengthening and diversification. “I remember reading an article that explained how, for generations, people thought it was risky to change jobs,” Matt recalls. “But now, at least in our industry, staying in the same job allows your skills to get stale.” So, where his role was once in contracts, security, finance, business development, and recruiting, he has incrementally yet steadily shape-shifted into the strategist and broad-scale leader he serves as today.
It is safe to assume, then, that the future of Matt’s role as President of MARKON is far from set or static. In this light, he also emphasizes the crucial part that long-term planning and vision plays in success. “The big thing I’ve learned recently is that I’m in this for the long haul, and my decisions are reflecting this realization,” Matt remarks. “Investment in training, going out of our way to hire good people, getting into new markets even though they may not make money this year—all these are an automatic yes for me now. Maximizing my 2010 income would be at the expense of my 2015 income, so I’m not going to do that,” he explains.
Inherent in this recipe success, however, is a certain fascination and will of character. “Be a sponge. Soak up everything,” Matt insists. It’s how we keep life fresh. It’s how we stave off stagnation, keeping the self on a perpetual journey toward betterment. And it’s how we put our future back in our own hands, molding something truly remarkable and unique from the raw material of status quo.
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com
How to See Your Goals Clearly and Solve Problems
Sometimes, when we are surrounded by challenges, it seems very difficult to see a way out. It’s as if we’re surrounded by heavy fog and we don’t know which way to go.
This concept was brought home in a wonderful story that Peter, a subscriber to this program, shared with me in a recent e-mail. I’ll let him tell you what happened…
“Thanks for your excellent piece on changing your perspective. It reminds me that I learned the same lesson as a youngster…
Many years ago I took a long sailing trip with some of my sailing buddies. It was a hardy sort of trip starting in Labrador, sailing around icebergs and finishing up the St. Lawrence Valley north west of Quebec City.
We had a lot of adventure in this trip and those stories could fill a few more emails, but it is the last day of the trip that fits with the theme of perspectives.
On the last morning of the trip, my best friend and I were alone on the boat as the others had disembarked at a port more convenient for land connections than the port where we were to leave the boat.
That morning we were in a thick fog in a part of the St. Lawrence that is full of small islands and shoals and is also in the shipping channel.
GPS hadn’t been invented and we didn’t have any electronic navigation equipment on the boat except for a depth sounder. We were doing our navigation the old way. Well, we got disoriented in the fog and we started to panic. We could hear fog horns and sea gulls. Both warnings of approaching hazards.
Fog horns meant a big cargo ship or a land obstruction and sea gulls meant the shore or beach. The depth sounder was all over the map because of the difficult water we were in.
We had changed direction so many times in panic that we had no idea where we were on the charts. We were at a loss until my friend realized that if he climbed the mast, he might get above the fog and have a clear view of our location.
Well, that was the solution. From high up on the mast my friend could see exactly where to go next and we both learned an important lesson on perspective.”
Isn’t life sometimes exactly like Peter’s dilemma in that boat? Sometimes we just need to get a different view of our circumstances.
Sometimes we just need to focus on doing one productive thing without trying to solve a number of problems all at one time.
One question that has helped me greatly in the past, when I wasn’t sure what to do about a problem, is as follows:
“What is the most productive thing I should be doing right now?”
Then, go do that one thing. When done, ask yourself the same question again and do something else that is productive.
Before you know it, you may find yourself at the top of the mast and things might look a whole lot clearer.
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A Clear View Affirmation
I do the most productive thing at any given moment.
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~Boaz Rauchwerger
See more Boaz Power TV here
http://www.youtube.com/user/BoazPowerTV
Preventing the Snow from Wrecking Havoc on your Business
Yet another day of blizzard conditions. That was a word that was barely uttered in the Washington area in previous winters, yet now it appears to be commonplace. So what actions should one take to proactively combat what there is no denying mother nature? I came across this blog post from Joe Mechlinski, of EntreQuest, a colleague and trusted advisor and I encourage you all to read it. Good, good stuff packed in here (yes, pun intended)…Let us know how you are creating opportunity out of this weather! Click Here
~Kathy Albarado
Onboarding and Assimilation: The First Step in Retention and Productivity
An employee will remember their first day of work at a new job. They will remember if their new manager and team were eagerly awaiting their arrival with warm smiles. They will remember if their workspace was ready with an internet connection and ready phone line and even more so a welcome package on their desk; not just with typical HR paperwork, but maybe a company logo t-shirt, set of pens or coffee mug. The first day will set the tone for their new job. And the level of effort put forth by the employer to welcome their newest hire over the months to follow could possibly determine the length of their stay and their level of productivity. The area’s top employers recognize the trends associated with new hire orientation and employee retention and are adopting robust assimilation programs. These programs are targeted toward:
• Decreasing time for employees to become productive.
• Promoting behaviors aligned with organizational goals, values, and culture.
• Building loyalty by demonstrating commitment, which sets the foundation for employee retention.
• Help to further the impression that the new hire chose the right organization.
The first day should be the beginning of employee engagement and retention initiatives and helping the employee to develop a sense of belonging. Here are a few best practices in building a successful onboarding and assimilation program:
1. Help the new hire further the belief that he/she chose the right organization: Many pieces of a “robust” orientation program will help to ensure that this happens. However, simply mapping out the new hire’s first week and ensuring that the “small things” are taken care of go a long way in reinforcing the new hire’s decision. Examples include: making sure their e-mail and phone are setup, cleaning their work space, having business cards ready, etc.
2. Be Proactive with Pre-Orientation Initiatives: New hires who haven‘t yet reported to work and may be weeks away from their start date can use the organization’s intranet to learn about the organization‘s culture, policies and benefits. Some organizations have developed web portals where they will be able to fill out forms online so they wouldn‘t have to get an employee paper packet sent to them by mail. Technology or packet – either one will help to ensure that the new hire’s first day is not filled with too much paper pushing – concentrate on assimilation.
3. Be Prepared: Have an Agenda or Slide Show Presentation: Slide show presentations help to ensure that all agenda items are covered with all new hires. The presentation should include organization history, products, services, direction, goals, vision, strategy, culture, policies, development opportunities, benefits, communication mechanisms, and the performance management system. Always provide employees with useful materials including but not limited to a list of contacts, an employee handbook, professional development information, and internet, email, and voicemail instructions. “Compliance” should be minimized as much as possible in order to focus on onboarding and assimilation.
4. Clearly Define Roles and Responsibilities: Ensure that everyone understands their roles and the schedule in which their responsibilities are completed. While every organization is unique in how the onboarding responsibilities are shared throughout the organization, here are some general guidelines for splitting up onboarding duties:
- HR department. Employee paperwork (forms, benefits, etc.); work hours; history and background of the organization; review of the organizational chart; tour of the facility.
-Training department. Delivery of the onboarding program elements; lectures and discussions about organizational culture, goals and objectives; review of company videos.
- Supervisor. Duties and responsibilities; work behaviors, standards and expectations; introductions to fellow team members and other members of the organization; tour of the department; review of other roles and relationships within the department.
- Co-workers. How the group works as a team; how to get things done; how to find/requisition tools and equipment.
- Executive team. Mission, vision and values; strategic goals and objectives of the organization; high-level review of roles and responsibilities; description of organizational culture.
- Mentor/buddy. Introductions to fellow team members and others within the organization; review of informal rules and policies; answers to day-to-day questions.
5. Get Senior Management Involved: Senior management interaction shows employees that the company cares and that the decision makers are not unknown entities throwing down orders from Mount Olympus. A member of Sr. Mgmt should also present the first part of the orientation slides focusing on the history, direction, goals, vision, strategy, etc….. This Sr. Mgr should be enthusiastic and a firm believer in the organization’s mission (Create a Shared Vision) – this will help the new hire buy into the organization’s mission/direction/strategy and become excited and engaged from the first day.
6. Socialize and Integrate with the Team: Managers are generally busy but it is imperative that they make themselves available during the new hire’s first week. Also provide new hires the opportunity to meet their peers – this will help new hires feel comfortable and welcomed more quickly by becoming part of the team on their first day/week. This can be accomplished by team lunches, cross-departmental meetings and a mentor/buddy program.
7. Tailor Onboarding to Different Audiences: The process may be modified to meet the differing needs of various groups of employees. For example, all supervisory and management employees will need a review of not only the employee handbook and company policies and programs, but also information on how to administer or lead these various programs and policies.
8. Create a Formal Follow-Up System: Set up follow-up interviews by asking the employee about their experiences so they understand that they can make a difference AND so you gain invaluable feedback from new hires who can still see over the corporate fence. This may be connected to an onboarding survey or questions about the management team, organizational communication, etc. Continuous informal manager feedback and direction are also critical. The manager should ensure there are no roadblocks impeding the employee’s success. A more formal performance discussion should be held after 3-6 months and the employee should be encouraged to discuss problems and find ways to provide support. Also, these discussions provide critical opportunities to coach for improvement and ensure the employee feels his or her work is interesting.
9. Evaluate the Program’s Effectiveness: HR professionals will want to evaluate their organization’s onboarding strategies using a variety of metrics.
- Turnover/retention rates. Examine the turnover/retention rates for different “graduating classes” (for example, those who began their employment in 2007) and track the different rates of those classes.
- Retention threshold. Track the point at which most new employees tend to exit the organization (for example, 50 percent of employees tend to quit the organization within the first 90 days of employment). If the organization tends to lose many employees during the first 90 days of employment. For example, the organization might want to conduct in-depth exit interviews to determine the cause (e.g., promises made but not kept, lack of thorough understanding of any negative working conditions).
- Performance measures. For example, compare the performance of a group provided with only one week of onboarding experiences with that of a similar group provided a full month’s worth.
- Formal/Informal feedback. Especially in smaller organizations, HR professionals may want to gather small focus groups consisting of recent new hires (or conduct this research one-on-one) and ask open-ended questions to determine their satisfaction not only with the onboarding process but with the organization as a whole.
10. Be Open to Change: Robust orientation requires a large amount of organizational resources and a sincere leadership commitment. However, helping employees to become productive quicker and aligned with organizational goals also requires constant assessment, reevaluation and adaptability. Flexibility and the ability to make changes will allow your organization to provide your employees with a “best place to work” environment.
What is your company doing to show their employees that it is the best place to work? ~ Holly Davis, Manager of BD, Helios HR