Teamwork – Emma Lo Russo

January 10, 2012January 10, 2012

Hope powering change

Last night I attended the Sydney Festival event Hope 2012 with the theme “Citizens seizing the day”.

Social Media was hailed as one of the agents of change. Certainly it has made it possible even in oppressed societies for citizens to reach more people and help gain momentum and support for their plight and desired change (think recent people lead change in Egypt as well as community support generated for those affected by QLD Floods, NZ & Japan Earthquakes etc).

However social media really only represents an easy, low-cost, high reach and engagement channel. It is not the channel that brings change but the opportunity it presents and the people who engage within it and the messages they share.

Listening to the personal stories of the great speakers last night and those across Australia, there were some common and consistent messages that suggest a blue print for bringing about change. They point to the cause of which the channel is only the conduit:

1) Hope Powers Change – you must first genuinely hope to bring about change . Hope then provides the fuel and momentum for you to continue in the face of adversity, inequity, barriers, and power imbalance. Hope also binds people together behind a common cause.

2) It starts with the first step – no matter how small, everything you contribute to bringing change no matter how small can make a difference. The benefits of taking 1 minute of your time, showing or demonstrating your encouragement and support, donating something small (time, message, money, resources). Just taking an action can generate, add-to or complete some great act of change in someone’s life. It has the added benefit of impacting you positively too.

3) Look for, understand & stand for basic human rights – equality, freedom, opportunity for everyone – how can you ensure this is enjoyed by everyone. Identify how many of your rights you take for granted that are not available to others. Identify the basic human rights that are being challenged all around the world including in our own back yard (and our legislation).

4) Connect directly with people affected – it is too easy to be disconnected from the person and people who needs help. Listen to their story. Listen to their hope. It is impossible to ignore and will help you know the right action to take.

5) Have Courage – it requires courage to stand up, have a voice, be counted and more importantly to act. It starts with the courage to ask yourself “why is this happening and what can I do to change it?”

It felt easy to applaud those making changes last night however significantly more difficult and uncomfortable to ask ourselves how much are we doing at the individual level to bring about change.

It matters not how much we have done to support required changes in the past, only how much we can do moving forward.

I reflect on the great George Bernard Shaw quote:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

It points to the need to stand resolute and that we must first look to ourselves as the instruments of change.

May 2012 be your year. Allow Hope to power the change you desire.

April 7, 2010March 29, 2017

Speaker & Leadership Development Facilitator for NSW Red Cross

Emma will be keynote speaker and facilitator of an interactive leadership development session for NSW Red Cross Youth Advisory Committee.

Emma will be addressing “How to lead a project team to success” and will be looking at communication, negotiation and management strategies, skills and styles and how they can be applied to ensure solid engagement within project teams and the wider community, and how by applying focus you can achieve your desired outcomes.

The team will benefit from an interactive learning session which will be conducted Saturday 10th April 2010.

For further information on Emma’s keynote speaking and leadership development modules and how they can enhance and progress your people and organization’s development and growth, contact Emma at emma@emmalorusso.com

August 12, 2009March 29, 2017

Sharpen your focus

Life is busy. We run from meeting to meeting adding additional items of things to do on our ever increasing list of items to be done. In between meetings we check our email, facebook, twitter or LinkedIn accounts. On the phone we multi-task by responding to the many instant “urgent” messages that are flashing via MSN or Skype. We race home to begin the juggle with family – cooking dinner, supervising homework, meanwhile responding to emails, phone texts, writing reports and making new notes of the additional things we need to do the next day.

We chase the sweet feeling of satisfaction as we tick each item off our list as “done” or as we extend our network, proving tangibly to ourselves that we are making progress.

Yet at the end of the week we find the business development proposal, recommended organization structural change, the new marketing plan or policy [you can insert any key project you should be completing], has not really progressed in the way we wanted or in the way our business really needs.

Our sense of satisfaction wanes as we see many items achieved but not together representing a milestone measure of true value, progress and success. We know we need to do better…if only we had the time to plan? Or more people to help?

Does this sound like you? Or at least like you some of the time? I know I have fallen into the trap of “busyness” before, spreading myself too thin, and have needed to consciously take steps to pull myself out, take ownership of my time again and reset my focus.

It certainly is a common problem and one that many of us face or fall into the trap of doing from time to time. This type of high pressured chaos may be felt like an unreasonable workload thrown upon us, but more than likely this will be a problem of focus, a problem of prioritization and a problem of learning to say “no” without feeling guilty.

The person who owns and is responsible for managing your time and achieving the best outcomes with your time and your team is you. And only you can change the way you approach your day and week to sharpen your focus and thus maximize your effectiveness.

Here are some simple steps to sharpen your focus and start making greater progress:

Revisit your business vision, strategy and goals. The more concise your business proposition is and who it is likely to help, the more likely your actions and those of others will help it stay on course. Once this proposition and your business goals are clear and easy to articulate, it becomes easier to sharpen your focus on the most important elements and targets to ensure you get there. If it is not clear to you or those who are leading, then it certainly will not be clear to those that are following.
What do you need to do to ensure your business achieves what it is looking to do? Be clear about your key responsibilities and the key things you should be doing to ensure you and your business achieve this. At any one time you should be focusing on no more than three major projects. Build in time to reflect on your progress and that of your team’s against your business goals and revisit anything you know is not really working.
What is the overall plan project outline and what needs to be done by when? Make a conscious list of priorities and develop a weekly plan to give you the right amount of time to spend on each item. The more tangible your goals and timeframes are, the easier it is to know how to approach your priorities, resources, workload and keep everything on track.
Identify how much can be delegated. What can be handed over and to whom? Plan how many items can be handed over. Spend the time with your team to help them also prioritize and see where they can make a major impact on the business. The more focus they have, the greater the results you will see being delivered. You also are creating an achievement culture where success motivates everyone and you will find even more can be achieved.
Weigh up those list items you can say no to. If you see too many competing priorities within projects, pick the top three things you should be focusing and begin the process of weighing up each item further down the list with the question “what would happen if I did not do this?”. If the answer is not fatal, then find the discipline to say “No” and make sure you reset expectations in your organization. Saying yes to everything on your list is an easy thing to do but much harder to deliver. Practicing the art of saying no, remembering to help your manager and team identify what they too can say no to helps sharpen focus within your organization. Focusing on the key things you should be doing will have a major impact on your business and will give everyone a chance to do those things well.
Plan each day and approach it with discipline. Set aside specific times to review and plan your day (first thing in the morning before heading to the office is a good time). Set aside specific times to review and respond to emails, phone calls and messages as well as time to write your plan or proposal – making sure you are writing any plans or proposals at the freshest point in the day. Identify who you need to speak to and allocate an appropriate time. Don’t overschedule your diary. It is easy to book every 15 minutes and there may be many times you need to, however it takes enormous discipline to keep to schedule.

Sharpening your focus brings you much closer to achieving your business targets.

As your targets change over time, you may need to also revisit the resources that are available to you. As a manager, you need to ensure you are equipped to do your job and that of your team’s well. To do this you will also need to set aside time to work on recruitment and your people development. Remember that your people are your greatest asset. By helping coach them to sharpen their focus, it will bring an enormous return on the power of what you as a team can achieve.

July 24, 2009March 29, 2017

Leading your business to success

Written by Emma Lo Russo and as published in the July 2009 “Australian Businesswomen’s Network” newsletter:

Leading your business to success

You have the title, a team that reports to you and a defined business purpose and responsibility. The business environment and competition is tough and you are looking at new ways to ensure continued growth and success. You spend night and day wondering what else you can do, what extra advantage you can create…

It is likely you already hold that advantage. And the answer is your own employees. You can easily move from managing them to do their job (even if you do this aspect very well), to leading them to achieve something far greater – for themselves and for your business.

Understanding the difference between management and leadership

Management is about getting the best out of resources, mostly through defining responsibilities and processes, to further the goals of the company. ‘Leadership’ on the other hand is painting a common view of the future and inspiring and galvanising your team towards achieving it.

There are some key leadership characteristics and qualities to embody if you hope to achieve a powerful business advantage through your people. A key aspect is understanding that your people are entirely your business. They provide the moment of truth every time they interact with your customers, partners, suppliers, each other etc. It is important that they share and believe in the aspirations for your company. That they can see how to align their communications and activities they do every day to the greater picture you have of success, and how that can in turn help them enjoy and benefit from that success.

Acknowledging, encouraging, empowering your people to act in harmony with your vision and values is far more powerful than prescribing what you want and outlining precisely how they should be doing it.

Empowering your people

Regularly sharing your vision and plans for the future and encouraging your team to help visualise success will help stimulate growth. Looking to your people to help identify the best growth opportunities and providing regular forums for your employees to present their ideas can help grow your business. Acknowledge all good ideas, empower your people to own those ideas and reward them when they help you get to where you want to go faster. The more you can celebrate success with your employees, the greater the performance culture you are creating.

Tips to help you lead your organisation to success:

Paint a common view of the future and translate your vision and strategy into workable goals for your employees
Share your vision regularly, applying short and long-term frame of references for all projects and activities
Live and promote your desired culture and values
Model integrity in decisions, communication and treatment of people – always lead by example
Recognise others’ strengths and limitations – focus on building teams around individual employees'(and your own) strengths
Coach, mentor and develop your team – help your team members develop self-awareness and strive for personal development, helping them align their career aspirations with your business goals
Inspire, encourage and acknowledge action and commitment from your employees

When thinking about leadership, it is good to reflect on the line “follow me, I am right behind you”.

If you lead through inspiration, suggestion and example then your team will follow, encourage others and deliver you greater success.

To read the article in context and others on leadership go to:

http://www.abn.org.au/womeninbusiness/newsletterissue79/Leadership-Strategies-for-Women/index_landing.html

To follow Emma on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EmmaLoRusso

July 2, 2009March 29, 2017

Are you listening to your customers?

We all understand the power of referral business and a glowing customer testimonial. Particularly if it is from a customer who is prepared to say how you made them richer, stronger or more fabulous than before.

When was the last time one of your customers provided positive feedback in writing or publically endorsed your organization? When you received that feedback, did you acknowledge the customer? And did you acknowledge your employee or team who were responsible for generating that positive response?

What if it was negative, did you re-engage and thank the customer, look to involve them in future product reviews, value them in a way that acknowledges your success is dependent upon how you treat and deliver to your customers.

I am not advocating the customer is always right and that to be a customer success driven organization it means you just do what they ask for. This is about listening. Listening and engaging your customers. Expecting and respecting that they will talk about their experience with your organization with someone, and maybe with many people either face-to-face or via any of the easy-to-use social mediums. You can’t control what they are going to say about you, but you can create an environment that makes every touch point positive, consistent and what is felt as an important engagement in a long term relationship.

Today I talked to two business owners of very different businesses. I asked the question of both of them to define their long term revenue model. And whether they had defined the perfect customer relationship – what engagement model, over what period of time, to generate a defined amount of revenue and profitability. Neither could answer and both admitted they were in the trap of thinking short term. One wanting to squeeze every possible dollar out of the first transaction and thus was focused on how many customers he could meet (in a volume X single transaction model) and the other just thinking survival so the horizon was very short term (weeks in fact). The problem with thinking this way is that they could both see that they were putting at risk a longer term relationship with the customer and potentially putting at risk the long term viability of their business and the profitability able to be realized over a long-term relationship with the end customer. They both acknowledged there was room for a better customer engagement model, with a relationship built and secured over the long term with the added potential to up-sell, cross-sell and value-add based on their ability to perform. Forget short term accountability – think of a longer term engagement model that requires long term accountability, and one that brings greater profitability.

This brings us back to the customer experience, and whether you are delivering this at each touch point and measuring this in a meaningful way.

When you genuinely feel the service or quality you experience is extraordinary, you are more likely to want to thank someone. A phone call, an email, or post something to a web forum or social network. You will share your positive experience with those close to you. When the experience is anything less than average, it can generate multiple conversations with anyone that will listen. Any of you who are active on Twitter will see how quickly great service and even more so, bad service is shared, and if it communicates the point more strongly, it will include an image and provide great detail of what is wrong. This often starts a number of those who begin sharing their similar experience. Or what alternative solution that they found. Rants get posted to blogs and then linked to other blogs, forums, tweets or Facebook posts for all to read, with hot topics seeing many of those who agree or disagree engaged even further. So it moves from perhaps a series of single incidents into a customer sentiment that is hurting your brand.

Someone’s perception of your company is their reality. Which means you can’t hide and you can’t control it. And thus, I ask, are you listening to your customers?

Since you can’t control what your customers are saying about you or where they are saying it, you need to focus on their experience when engaging with you.

If you don’t encourage and provide a forum for them to feedback to you, then they will find or create their own. So create that space, have the space owned by your customers and encourage active feedback (good and bad).

Engage in some way with each and every customer who shares their experience with you – this may be through suggested reading, recourse, or just in saying thanks. Share your appreciation for the feedback and what you did about it, not only to them but to the rest of your customer base.

The basis of creating a community and establishing a large number of loyal long-term customers will be strongly based around how well your customers feel they are being listened to. Whether they can see their feedback is influencing the overall customer experience, the levels or types of customer service and support, possibly even the products or services you provide.

And don’t ignore the stuff “out there” in the global social media space. Not just what they are saying about you but what they are saying about your competition. Today there are companies that offer tools that measure buzz, mentions of products and brands. This can provide you very early insights into what could become a big opportunity for you – either heading off a disaster or in discovering your next breakthrough.

So ask yourself the question today – do your customers have a place to talk to you? Does your business processes and culture encourage listening? And if a customer does talk to you – how will they know they were being listened to and that their input is valued and can help positively impact your business?

You can significantly improve your business if you view every single customer as a potential evangelist and part of your extended sales organization.

May 20, 2009March 29, 2017

The Teamwork Bridge: Helping remote employees feel connected

As the world increasingly becomes globalized and technology makes it easy for us to work remotely, you may increasingly find yourself in a situation where you need to manage a virtual team.

Having worked for an Australian listed company where 97% of its revenues were offshore, the workforce as a consequence was split to nearly two-thirds in remote offices resulting in many direct reports crossing multiple regions. Even within head office, in order to attract and retain the best talent, we needed to provide flexibility around balancing work hours with personal life. This meant a percentage of local employees also chose to work from home offices in various percentages of their working week.

So how do you manage your remote employees, particularly those that are working in multiple global regions and ensure that the vision for your company is well understood, that the objectives and timeframes are clear, that the culture is being lived, that they are motivated, energized, feeling part of a team?

This article is designed to share the best tips and practices learned over 5 years of leading a global organization, and addresses how you can achieve a unified work force where employees feel connected and as one team – no matter where they are located.

1. Set strong foundations – hire world-class employees

This is a critical business success factor. You need to feel confident you have the right person to represent and lead your company, can evangelize the culture, live the values and be able to make decisions every day that is in harmony with, and will deliver on, your overall business objectives.

There is no doubt, the stronger the person you have, the greater the success you will see as they are able to make judgment on how best to localize the strategies to achieve the broader objectives within their specific market or region.

The more capable and competent the person, the more possibility you have for cross border promotion and the building of a greater organization. So don’t ever compromise on recruitment, with the stakes being higher for those representing you in overseas regions and outside of regular view and contact. You need to have full confidence you have someone you can trust in the job. Great business success depends upon top talent.

2. Importance of Induction

Again another critical business success foundation factor. Often in the speed to implement new plans, not enough time is spent on providing a comprehensive induction program for your new employees. It is important that an induction program extends beyond the immediate first weeks or handover of duties. Consideration and time must be given to discussion of values and of culture, plus discussion of previous successes and failures and why they went right or wrong (this is to encourage learning and comfort in discussing the good and challenging times of the business or the role).

Other induction strategies like shadowing in meetings to help share the company language, best stories and best practices can help provide confidence. Initially you or others may lead, however as soon as you feel confident, it is important to switch roles and shadow and coach with your employee leading until you are confident they are fine to stand alone. The main requirement to have confidence in managing this person remotely is for you to ensure you establish a solid relationship and equip your employee with enough information, enough experience, enough confidence very early on in the appointment to be able to confidently represent the company.

See the induction period as a minimum of 6 months and provide close contact and encouragement to ask questions. If this is an appointment in a different region, an example schedule may be:

Solid briefing them through the recruitment process already providing a strong foundation and qualifying tasks around understanding of the products, markets, competitors etc
A fortnight induction with you at HQ – allow them to see and hear first-hand how the company operates, allow them to meet their other stakeholders, key customers etc
Assign a work buddy that you trust can also help evangelize the values and culture
Once they are “live” ensure close contact with you & encourage them to really share first insights and ideas (this is a great way to discover objective new insights)
Ensure they are equipped with everything they need – resources, budgets, etc
Visit them regularly in the first 6 months but offer practical & philosophical help – e.g. visit their customers, partners, media, present jointly to their team or answer Q&As
Request after 3 months a revised high-level plan. This will ensure you get a good understanding of how deep their understanding is and any areas that you may still need to help them with. Look to have them present to others early in the engagement to help formalize the shared learnings. Encourage questions around feedback.
Get the team together within that period to ensure relationships are built at the team level even if they are all working remotely away from each other.

It is important not to micromanage the person – this is just a period of foundation setting around the “what” and the “who”, and unless the “how” is important then allow that to be determined by your employee. As soon as you think they are ready you need to give them enough space to do what you first employed them to do!!

Although this point addresses induction, the need to stay engaged as part of developing the individual overall is required.

3. Importance of frequent & open Communication

Be frequent, regular, consistent and coherent in your communications. Help your remote employees feel part of what is going on in your organization through regular:

Phone calls
Chats (instant messaging, Skype and others)
Video hook ups
Wikis, forums, blogs and other web dashboard “single views” for all employees
Engage others in your team to inform/provide briefs to your remote employees – just as long as someone is sharing what is going on!
Share drafts of communications, plans, pending decisions and presentations for input
Localize communications if there are language barriers
Make regular face to face time – even if they are overseas, coordinate at least a quarterly face to face meeting (you to them or they to you)
Regular face to team meetings
Email helps provide background and can be used to help overcome the tyranny of different working time zones, but don’t rely on this as the only means of communication

If you have followed step one and you have smart people, they generally will be very good to pick up on what is or is not happening within your business. However it is important you do not leave them guessing and trying to fill in gaps that can lead to wrong conclusions. Instead include them in sharing the ups and downs, the challenges you or the organization are facing etc, in order for them to have the opportunity to input and help. Apart from the relationship building upon honesty and transparency, a benefit is that they can help either solve or at least understand what else is happening in the business which may be possibly impacting them or others they are dealing with.

4. Regular team meetings

Feels like it is stating the obvious right? But with remote employees you need to make sure that they not only have their time with you, but that they have time feeling part of the team, both to build their understanding of each others’ styles, challenges, and dependencies, but also to help provide a forum to share key learning, insights, projects, achievements that they are working on. It is a good way for the team to identify where and how to help each other successfully meet the business objectives. It is also essential to build and retain the values, character and culture of your organization. When you are in the position of managing your people over multiple time zones, you need to agree to the appropriate frequency and ensure these virtual meetings always occur.

If you are managing a global team, remember to change time zones for calls to suit the different employees (be fair and schedule this accordingly). There will always be someone who will be up in the middle of the night – just make sure it is not always the same person! And include yourself in the schedule of middle of the night calls. Make sure you give plenty of time and priority in team meetings to those not immediately in front of you and who do not have the benefit of the pre or post discussions that can follow a meeting.

5. Identify the sub group working parties – and create cross-functional teams and ownership across borders

This is a practical tip to ensure you don’t focus too much on the doing yourself or within your headquarters team only. Spread and share your projects and create cross-function teams and ownership of certain objectives within a sub-set of virtual teams across borders. The creation of these virtual teams helps you utilize all your available talent but also ensures a strong culture of collaboration, teamwork and global awareness and understanding of the entire business.

6. Foster collaboration

Every point within this article is about fostering collaboration, but it is also a topic worthy of its own highlighted focus and attention. Ask yourself these questions: What example do you provide in collaborating with your team? How can you create an environment of collaboration and do this through remote employees? How do you encourage problem solving? Provide cross-regional resources? Virtual teams? Use this point more as a prompt to continually ask yourself how you can foster collaboration within your team. For remote employees this is critical to ensure high motivation, engagement, loyalty, commitment and for your culture to live and breathe in the way you would hope it could.

7. Discipline in practices

This is just good business practice and as a manager and leader of remote employees it is important you keep discipline in how you apply this to different time zones, regions and needs. From personal experience, it can be quite taxing: to be available first up in a morning for say the US, to be available for APAC in the day and then the EMEA during the evening. If you want to keep a work/life balance then you will need to have discipline around planning the how and when to do all the things you need to do.

It is important that you build in time for:

Acknowledgement of employees work, give feedback in the timeframes that you commit to, give them some structure so they have good expectations to rely and operate within.
Provide available times or implement a system where they can let you know when they need to touch base outside of scheduled times. This should help you instead of being “on-call” 24/7 to everyone
Share and acknowledge successes, their milestones and achievements of your direct reports and those of their team
Provide regular performance and development feedback, make time for personal and professional development discussions and formal acknowledgement of performance reviews

8. Provide a clear career path – circulate employees across offices.

If you want to hire world class/world’s best talent you need to be able to demonstrate a great career path. Working for a global or virtual organization provides many great benefits and interest to employees and you hopefully you have already made sure you have hired those with enough ambition to deliver great results as the path to the next step. Ensure you have an individual development and career plan in place and look at what would be involved in delivering this from an investment and career path perspective.

It is important to ensure the movement of your people is two-way. Don’t just handpick the best talent from external offices and bring them to head office. Plan for senior organization leaders or future leaders to spend time out of headquarters within the various regions. This helps cement culture and brings a deeper level of understanding of your business in all regions and areas of your business that can bring not only immediate benefits, but also long term ones.

9. Harnessing available technology

There is much technology available to help you work remotely and stay connected with each other. Using cloud-based technologies like Gmail & Google docs for real time collaboration no matter where you are located can help. As does SaaS programs such as SalesForce for your customer relationship and data management purposes, and Intaact for Financial systems, ensuring everyone has access to the same information and infrastructure in real time no matter where they operate. Other technologies such as VOIP e.g. Skype can help keep costs low but frequency of contact and virtual face to face visibility high. Whilst Skype is good for one on one meetings, if you can’t afford internal video conferencing facilities for group meetings, you can hire out venues that provide it for you.

As to your IT server requirements, there are plenty of hosting services that allow you to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, with highly scalable, reliable, fast and inexpensive hosting from providers such as Amazon S3.

There is a plethora of virtual on-demand solutions that can help you manage your business no matter where your employees are located. This enables you to focus on your core business, leaving the business of managing the IT to those who specialize in it as well as providing you with flexibility and scalability that is difficult to compete with if you choose to keep your entire infrastructure in-house.

Building a strong and collaborative team

As a business leader you must have set firmly an overall organization development strategy that includes the objective of building a strong and collaborative team.

These tips are all about creating a team bridge – a way to help your remote employees feel connected. Connected and engaged employees are more likely to be motivated and will deliver much more than if they are left alone.

As Jack Welch best summarizes it “The team with the best players wins”.