Do you work for a 3BL company?

The triple bottom line (abbreviated as TBL or 3BL, and also known as people, planet, profit or "the three pillars") captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organisational (and societal) success: economic, ecological, and social.

Company Culture

Through Principles learned from some of the “best companies to work for” and “most successful companies” we help you focus on the cultural clusters in your company that can help you grow, implement new strategies and become more productive.   We help you with the introduction of tailored solutions to change non-practical cultural believes, and get buy in from the front line through to senior management.  We stay involved throughout the whole process, enabling the best possible outcomes.

Change Management

Change can often be difficult and met by resistance.  We help you fully understand change, what is required, help you map out the path, and support you through it, just like in a successful partnership.

Employee Engagement

The key here is to not only have your employees engaged, but for them to manage up and create innovation from within.  Employee engagement will also reduce absenteeism and staff retention.

Staff Motivation

Most people have something that drives and motivates them, and in most cases it’s not the same.  Establishing whether people are extrinsically or intrinsically motivated, and finding out why they are at work, will aid in creating a better workplace where employees look forward to showing up.

Team Leadership

Starting with leaders understanding themselves through “self-evaluation”, understanding the EQ’s SQ’s (emotional and social quotient) etc., understanding the difference between leadership and management, and how to get the best from your staff are only some of the factors we focus on.  Our program cannot be successful unless we have total support from the senior leadership team down, as well as from the front line up.  Lean culture and lean leadership are two key components in the journey of become a great leader.

Systems & Processes (Lean Six Sigma)

Lean Six Sigma is todays buzz word, but in essence all we are talking about are principles found in Lean and Six Sigma.  There are many other tools, but at the end we investigate if a process that is in place is really the best means to an end.  We may find that there are a few steps to many, which make it inefficient.  We may look at the supply chain and find areas to save time, money, reduce inventory, etc.  This will create savings due to the removal of wasteful practices.

Productivity and Efficiency Increases

Through a combination of all of the above we are able to help you target specific areas in your business that will most benefit in the short term, as well as a focus on the big picture and long term sustainability of the business. 

Environment and Sustainability

With carbon taxes, global warming, utilities and transport costs all affecting our bottom line, we can take a closer look at the triple bottom line (3BL).  People and profit will be targeted through the areas above, and planet will be included early on to ensure any change incorporates environmental responsibility and sustainability, without any major cost impacts on the business.

Our approach 

in assisting your business is based on an initial business audit, a 360 degree review, a systems and processes audit, people audit and much more.  Below are some of the key target areas and some very basic explanations on what we do.  We could discuss each and every one of these points over many pages, but we’d rather meet you and find out what most concerns you in your business.  What are you or your employees losing sleep over?  Once we fully understand where it hurts, we can target these areas, and through root cause analysis drill down into the whole value chain of your business (from suppliers to end customers), to ensure a measured approach in line with your business strategy.

Last, but not least, we have the added advantage of not only being a specialist consultancy firm, but through our RTO (Registered Training Organisation) arm, we can structure our programs to include your whole organisations training requirements.  Whether it is accredited and nationally recognised training, skills cluster training, or purely non accredited specific skills in areas like sales, procurement or finance (to name a few) to address any areas above and make you an even more successful business.  If you are in Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain that furthermore means that we can access to a number of government initiatives to support some of the programs on offer financially.

If you have read through all the above, my guess is that you have nodded at least a couple of times.  Are you ready however to drop me a line or give me a call to set up a meeting over a coffee to start the conversation on how we can add value to your business?

Inside the Mind of a Great Manager

As a manager and leader I aspire to be the best I can be in both areas.  Too often however I find that we get caught up with the day to day operations in a way that lets us forget our basics and values. 

It is in these times that we need to take a breather, re-focus, re-evaluate and just remember what really matters, and what makes us who we are.  We cannot always be everyone’s friend, that's the reality. 

As much as I like to be close to everyone in our business, and especially to my team, there are times where decisions have to be made.  Decisions that affect others and the greater good of the business, decisions that influence areas which individuals may not understand or consider when pursuing a specific goal. 

Making decisions is something that we constantly face, and often we do not have much time to consider whether they are the right or wrong ones.  Often we will not find out until much later whether we have made the right decision, but at the end of the day, someone has to, and armed with intellectual knowledge as well as experience we are generally able to take the correct path, no matter how tough or unreasonable it may seem to others.

In saying all this, I came across the article below by David Di Salvo, posted on 25/9/2012.

Since each of us has had good and bad managers, it’s tempting to wonder if there’s a brain-based distinction between them.  At times I’ve worked with managers so appallingly unfit for their role that it seemed like there just had to be something missing upstairs — some crucial component of what makes a manager effective that these people just didn’t have.

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On rarer occasions, I’ve met managers who seemed genetically predestined for their jobs.  I asked one of those people once why he appeared so naturally in sync with managing people and projects, and he said, “I’ve never really thought about it, but I just like working with good people and helping to make things happen.”  His air of nonchalance didn’t surprise me, nor did the fact that he’d never given it much thought — I knew he was genuine in both regards.

In this, my concluding article to a series I began weeks ago, I’m going to describe what my research and observations reveal about what’s going on in the minds of great managers.

1.  Great managers don’t “do” management — they embody it.

This speaks to why I knew the manager I mentioned above was genuine when he said he hadn’t considered the question very much, and that the question itself didn’t really seem important to him.  The question I was asking him addressed the “function” of management, but for him management “function” wasn’t the point of his job.  He never saw it that way.  Instead, he embodied the functions of good management so thoroughly that separating himself from them and analyzing why he did this or that well never occurred to him as a good use of time.

2. Great managers limit their accessibility for only two reasons.

Great managers realize that a vital part of their job is to be accessible to their staff, and they always strive to uphold this role — with only two exceptions.  The first is if they must meet a deadline that is crucial, and taking any time away from doing so will result in disaster.  Note: this doesn’t describe every deadline. If a manager effectively manages his or her time, most deadlines still allow for windows of accessibility. But every so often one comes up that does not, and for the period of time necessary to meet it, an effective manager knows they have to “lock down” their schedule for a while.

The other exception is if an employee is abusing the manager’s accessibility because they are not able to accomplish what’s required of them.  When an employee is constantly in the manager’s doorway with a barrage of questions, and no answer is ever sufficient to light their path, then the manager knows another course of action is necessary. Maybe it’s training, maybe it’s reassignment – but whatever the case, more accessibility isn’t the answer; the employee is using it as an excuse.

3. Great managers never mistreat staff in group settings (or otherwise).

This one may sound like the typical “great managers don’t throw their employees under the bus,” but there’s more to it than just that.  Every sub-par manager I have met or worked with/for, has on at least one occasion caused a staff member embarrassment, shame or outright humiliation in front of others.  The reason is always the same — insecure managers derive a sense of control from showing people that no one is beyond being stomped on.  Sometimes this behavior comes completely out of nowhere (or so it seemed to the employee), because the manager felt they had to “send a message” on that particular day.  Bad managers have a muted sense of how much damage they’re doing each time they mistreat a staff member. They may even think that their willingness to be harsh in public is a sign of strength, when in fact it’s the ultimate sign of weakness.

4. Great managers celebrate great achievements and congratulate daily successes. 

When a team accomplishes something truly great, the manager of that team makes sure that the team has an opportunity to jointly celebrate.  Maybe it’s a team lunch, maybe it’s happy hour — whatever fits the team — but great managers don’t let opportunities like that go by without giving the team a chance to grow closer through their achievement.  Of course, not every team achievement reaches the level of “greatness,” but great managers are also always on the lookout for daily successes — and those are met with congratulations. Maybe it’s a congratulatory email with a cc: to another supervisor, or perhaps just a face-to-face show of appreciation.  The point is, great managers know that big achievements and daily successes are opportunities, and they don’t let them pass by unnoticed.

5. Great managers always refer back to their experience before making a decision.

Great managers became managers because they performed well enough to merit the attention of their supervisors and eventually were given responsibility for other employees.  As such, they know how messy a process getting promoted can be, and that they didn’t make it to their positions without suffering their fair share of mistakes.  Poor managers (even if they were once good employees) make decisions using formulaic, one-size-fits-all approaches.  They think that their role dictates that they supervise generically.  Great managers never make that mistake, but instead rely on their rich repository of personal experience–including mistakes and failures–whenever they make a decision that affects others.

6. Great managers don’t care about being known as “great” — they care about being known as great contributors. 

The late great Peter Drucker said, paraphrasing, the effective executive always asks him/herself, “What can I contribute?”  That’s essential to what makes the mind of a great manager different than that of just about anyone else in an organization.  Every day, they are looking for ways to contribute more of what they have to offer to make their teams better, make their projects better, and make the organization better.  And striving to contribute need not be a conscious, intentional process every day; rather, it becomes a normal part of how a great manager thinks.  Again, it’s not about “being” the role — it’s about embodying it.

7. Great managers willingly pass the baton.

You can always tell who the insecure managers are, because they’re the ones most unwilling to identify successors to their positions.  But great managers think about this very differently.  They don’t lack ambition, but they pursue their ambitions with a “back fill” mentality.  Someone on their team has what it takes to do the manager’s job, and great managers cultivate that talent because they want that person to move into their role when a new opportunity presents itself.  A poor manager, on the other hand, is an ambitious opportunist who really doesn’t care about nurturing a replacement — that’s “someone else’s problem.”

8. Great managers are already leaders, no matter their title.

Countless business books discuss the differences between management and leadership, but my observation has been that a great manager is already a leader — and doesn’t especially care what books say about the alleged differences.  Perhaps average managers (to say nothing of the bad ones) fall short of leadership material, but the great ones already embody the characteristics that make people highly respected leaders.  And if others in an organization are paying attention, the great manager will eventually achieve a true leadership role, and many will benefit from a wise decision to capitalize on greatness.

You can find David on Twitter @neuronarrative and at his website, The Daily Brain.

You can find me on Twitter @goal1e, and more information on management and leadership coaching as well as cultural change through www.chaseperformance.com