Maybe the problem is not you … just your environment

Today we present an article by a new HR-Worldview Guest Author.

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This year at My Next Path, we have worked with a certain number of clients who started a coaching process because they felt uneasy with their current job. Some of them even got the unpleasant sensation they might have some sort of issue. When we started working together, they in fact quite quickly came to realize that they did not have any problem themselves: the source of their trouble was their environment! Therefore, instead of feeling bad, stuck, paralyzed or sometimes worst, what they had to do was actively take action and work their way out to another environment that would better fit them. Let us explain more below.

Mary*has been working for 8 years in the same company. She was a middle manager in the sales and marketing area. She had always been travelling a lot for her job and liked it. She liked her industry and was very knowledgeable about key factors of success, players, etc. But more recently, she had 3 different bosses in 2 years, an increasing pressure and despite good results in her region, little recognition. Her self confidence was eroded and she found herself drowned in micro-management tasks imposed by an insecure manager. When we started working together, Mary was really unsure about her own abilities.

After a few sessions of analyzing what she thought were her issues, she came to realize, she had lost her self confidence because of the environment (poor management, wrong cultural fit etc), not because she had problems herself! In fact, she was perceptive enough to take action, seek help, and finally take that healthy distance to realize that. A few months later, Mary landed a new job in a company more in line with her style and expectations. Although everyone around her told her to stick to her current job because of the tough economy, she overcame her initial fear, dedicated the appropriate time to look for the right opportunity and found one.

We have seen more than one case similar to Mary’s this year: Before feeling bad about yourself and jumping to conclusions, make sure you are able to analyze your situation with perspective. Actively take action to find a work environment that better fits you maybe the best decision you will ever make! This obviously could mean changing company but not necessarily. This could also mean changing job/department within a corporation: very often in big companies, people have been offered jobs that do not properly fit their profile; by changing to another job, area or department within the company, they suddenly feel better and everybody wins.

About our Guest Authors:

Myriam Le Cannellier and Catherine Bortolotti are Career Coaches who work with professionals who are experiencing a transition in their career, because of relocation, an unexpected situation in their current job or the will to make a significant change in their professional life. Learn more about them at www.mynextpath.com

Competitive Advantage: becoming the “big dog”

Special September Benefits Installment by Jim Moniz

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It’s a childhood memory that most of us share…the loud bark of the snarling neighborhood dog that would come out from no where and scare the “you know what” out of you every other time you walked or rode your bike down “his” street. Chances are you eventually became weary of the scenario and decided to avoid the the big dog at whatever cost, first by avoiding the street then consequently the dog’s neighborhood altogether.

That “big dog” concept continues its chase in the business world. If you have the competitive edge, you have the advantage over others who fearing your loud and well-defined “bark” will retreat, leaving you to reap the business benefits of being “top dog.”

So, how do you become the “big dog” and get that competitive advantage? Competitive advantage is achieved when a business produces surplus profits - greater than it's competitors - due to unique product pricing or resource advantages. As a result, its profitability is greater than the average profitability of all other businesses competing for the same set of customers

The advantage, however, goes to those organizations that can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. This implies that a business's strategies enable it to maintain above-average profitability for a number of years. This is typically achieved through the creation and execution of processes, positions and/or propositions (as in value proposition) that are difficult if not impossible to duplicate.

Businesses pass the competitive advantage threshold by attracting and retaining great people and then nurturing a unique culture - one that demonstrates passion, executes with consistency, perpetuates success, breeds confidence and rewards performance.

Companies that achieve this start with and build upon a foundation of mission, values and vision that are reinforced by, in and through every aspect of their business plan. As a result, they commonly enjoy a shared value system with their employees - because both are clear about, and compelled by, the direction the company is headed, how it's going to get there, what is expected of everyone and how each will be rewarded for the company's success.

In their book, Strategic Management, Charles W. L. Hill & Gareth R. Jones offer the following insights about organizational culture. Their insights are key to linking the ability of a company to enjoy a competitive advantage in the market place with building compensation strategies that will correspondingly fuel the performance needed to achieve that outcome.

Organizational culture is " ...the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization..."

"Organizational values are beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals..."

"From organizational values develop organizational norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations ..."

The key word in this quote is "behavior." For a business to achieve the results associated with a competitive advantage it needs the right people consistently doing the right things in the right way and for the right reasons. As a result, any rewards system that is built must, at its core, encourage a focus on the right performance factors and reward their execution. This is how results are achieved and sustained.

Larry Brody and Ram Charan, in their book Execution, put it this way:

"A business' culture defines what gets appreciated, respected, and, ultimately, rewarded; those rewards and their linkage to performance are the foundation of changing behavior. If a company rewards and promotes people for execution, its culture will change. However your organization determines rewards, the goal should be the same - your compensation and reward system must have the right yields. You must reward not simply on strong achievements on numbers, but also on the desirable behaviors that people adopt. Over time, your people will get stronger, as will your financial results."

With the aforementioned principles in mind, consider the impact on your company's ability to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace if your culture demanded the following in its efforts to attract and retain great people:

• Only talented, committed and focused people "need apply"
• No entitlements (people are only rewarded for achieving well defined performance standards)
• All employees must think and behave like owners

Such a culture needs a rewards system that reinforces those standards and that attracts the right "fish" to the "pond". That said, the rewards framework needs to be built in harmony with the strategic, operational and performance management systems of the company for a competitive advantage to ultimately be achieved.

The pathway that a company needs to take to achieve a competitive advantage starts with a foundation of mission and values, out of which grows the company vision. At this stage, a company must clearly define why it exists, what it stands for and what it values. Correspondingly, it must build a compatible total rewards foundation and philosophy consistent with the ends it seeks to serve. The company vision is fulfilled only through a well designed strategic plan. That plan is matched on the rewards "side" with a Compensation and Rewards Game Plan that envisions pay for performance programs that will support and reinforce the company's strategy.

Execution of the company's strategy is key to its success. Capital and cash flow need to be managed, marketing initiatives need to be crafted and launched, operations need to be well executed, superior products or services need to be developed, and excellent customer service needs to be rendered. All of these functions depend upon the applied intelligence of a dedicated workforce. As a result, these elements need to be reinforced by compensation strategies that are effectively engineered and tied to roles and expectations that are well defined and communicated.

Through this combined confluence and application of business ideals, organizational architecture and rewards processes and systems, a company ultimately experiences success and builds a culture of confidence.

Rewards reinforcement strategies work hand in hand with performance management systems to elevate that success and create true "line of sight" in the organization. Such a company has unleashed the lifeblood of a competitive advantage.

Ultimately, companies that enjoy a competitive advantage in the marketplace don't just initiate a Compensation and Rewards system. They sustain them. Their ability to do so is dependent in part on the way in which they identify the issues and problems they face and then address them according. We classify these issues in the following categories. In asking the questions associated with each category, a business can better assess its area of greatest priority in dealing with its compensation development.

Future

• Are employees compelled by the future of the organization?
• Is there a belief in the business strategy of the company?
• Are there opportunities for personal and professional growth and development?

Foundation

• Is there an alignment between the compensation philosophy of our company and its mission, values and vision?
• Do we have a rewards value proposition that has attraction capacity - that will help us recruit and retain great people?
• Is there an ownership mentality throughout our organization?
• Framework
• Are we achieving an efficient return on our compensation investment?
• Is our compensation program properly balanced between long and short-term rewards and guaranteed versus incentive compensation?
• Have we established clear performance standards for the achievement of rewards in the organization?
• Focus
• Have we created "line of sight" in our organization between the vision and strategy of the company and the roles, expectations and rewards we have and provide for our employees?
• Do we have a rewards reinforcement strategy in place that keeps employees focused on the expectations we have of them and how they will be rewarded for performance?
• Are we consistently achieving the desired results we want from our employees?

A competitive advantage in the marketplace begins and ends with getting and keeping the right people "on the bus" as stated in Jim Collin's seminal book, Good to Great. Once in place, a culture of confidence needs to be nurtured and achieved through consistent execution of key results emanating from the vision and strategic plan of the business. Such a pattern of execution is achieved, in part, by developing an aligned rewards philosophy and Game Plan, then envisioning, creating and sustaining great compensation strategies.

Best of luck in becoming the”big dog”!

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About our Benefits Installment Author:

James E. (Jim) Moniz, CEO of Northeast VisionLink, a Massachusetts firm that specializes in structuring executive compensation. James E. Moniz is a national speaker on the topic of wealth management and on executive compensation.

Jim Moniz will be presenting at this years SHRM conference in Phoenx, be sure to check out our presentation: “Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage, The Role and Impact of Effective Compensation and Rewards Strategies”