Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Wendy Nemitz
Ingenuity Marketing Group
651.690.3358
we***@****************ng.com
www.ingenuitymarketing.com
Leaning on others
is way for owner
to travel lightby Wendy Nemitz
I AM THE FOUNDER of Ingenuity Marketing Group, which does not mean a thing.
Liz Kuntz, our lead marketing consultant, tells me what to do and when it needs doing. Although I have 20 years of experience in professional services marketing and Liz has less than five, she is the boss when it comes to managing client projects.
I planned it this way. After Liz was hired, we asked her to take an assessment by the Gallup Organization called the StrengthsFinder. Two of her top five strengths are Arranger and Focus.
Arrangers are good at project management and events, especially with moving parts. Those with Focus can stay on their projects for a long period of time.
The StrengthsFinder pinpointed that I am a starter. I can bring in the business and plan for the future of the company, but I have learned to rely on Liz as my boss in many areas.
Flexible teams and strengths-based leadership aren’t new concepts. But leaders still struggle with them despite the opportunities for retention and innovation. It requires letting go of some control in order to focus on what you do best.
Are you ready to take orders from the supposed order takers?
Managing egos
The ego of an owner is why there is a business in the first place. It takes substantial ego to start a business and an even bigger one to let it succeed. Your ego can get in the way of your team.
No one will tell you if you have a team-stifling ego. You’re the boss. You just won’t get the best thinking in an era of global competition when the brains of your people are your biggest business assets.
I struggle to get out of my own way and let others lead. But basing work on strengths means that people get to do the work they are most suited for and best at.
One important point: You must ignore age. Our workforce is becoming increasingly diverse in both age and culture. This creates exciting opportunities if you follow an honest assessment of strengths.
In the professional services firms where we work, young people do not traditionally have a lot of face time with clients and are not expected to bring in new clients. They are supposed to bill the hours.
Because the more senior people are, well, more senior, they are expected to be great at relationships. This isn’t always true.
As a result of this traditional hierarchy, young people with great relationship skills leave the professions. Yes, they have to have technical experience so they know what they are talking about. But if I spotted a young person with real relationship skills I would pull that person aside early and assign a specific development track related to those talents.
Competition is too fierce these days to let people languish in a back cubicle when they could contribute to the bottom line now.
At Ingenuity, everyone who wants it has client contact. As an Arranger, Liz is our authority on events and client timelines. My partner Dawn Wagenaar is a Focus Achiever, so she is in charge of our firm’s ‘big picture’ map and keeping clients on task.
I am the Futuristic Communicator, so I dream up new things and ask ‘What if’? I also sometimes talk about what I learned from episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (which causes good-natured eye rolling).
Leveraging skills
Once you understand each team member’s strengths, be careful not to pigeonhole someone too narrowly to a specific skill set. An employee might be really good at research and building databases, but might also enjoy writing or cross-selling opportunities.
Contributions can come from supposedly inexperienced people. Dawn and I did some secret shopping of law firms last year and discovered that when we met with younger attorneys, they did their Internet-based homework by reviewing our Web site and surfing to find our names. The older partners generally did not.
The younger ones also seemed more service-oriented: offering connections, introductions and even the use of their conference rooms.
Mixing the experienced with the newbies is not just for mentoring purposes. If business owners knew that they could double their chances to connect with a prospect with a diverse team approach, they would be leading (and selling) from strength.
Traveling light
Instead of trying to make one person great at everything – or expecting to run the show all the time – smart leaders develop a strong sense of interdependence that empowers everyone to step up.
This results in a higher level of agility to respond to client needs. Team members know exactly who to talk to when they need specific information or tasks completed quickly. They aren’t intimidated to ask the boss to pitch in. They are also more accepting of their limitations and the limits of others.
Leading from strengths means that the whole world is no longer on your shoulders – the reason you hired people in the first place.
