The Reverse Peter Principle

The Reverse Peter Principle states that organizations should strive to stay as flat as possible and every manager should stay as close to the front line and do as much as possible. The best people understand their jobs, the meaning and underlying purpose of their tasks and only need to be pointed in the right direction, apprised of available resources, given guidelines, goals, targets, deadlines, and intermediate check in points. People who are doing what they love and understand need relatively little management. When an organization’s best people spend too much time managing and not enough time doing, then it may be time to spend more effort on raising the performance bar in other ways: recruiting at a higher level and providing better, more-focused training.

The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle

Most people start out as doers, and they have a function; they’re a marketing person, a human-resource person, a finance person, a production person. And they get really good at doing that as they gain more experience. The reason they usually get promoted is not because someone innately thought that the person would make a great manager.  They get promoted because they were a great doer. Is the same person going to be a great manager? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The Peter Principle holds that as people  get promoted again and again, they keep doing less and managing more until they get to a point where they stop getting promoted because they’re not as good at their new job. The Peter Principle says that you end up in the job you’re the worst at.

Thinkers and Doers need Implementers

Thinkers and Doers need Implementers

Thinkers are the ones open to new concepts and ideas. Thinkers are the thought leaders, constantly trying to improve or change the way things are done. They are creative instigators who are always experimenting, taking risks and change. They strive to invent new processes and products. The weakness of some Thinkers is that they often don't understand all the nuts and bolts of what it takes to implement processes or bringing new concepts to market.

“Doers” are the folks that “Get it done”. A Doer recognizes an efficient and standardized process. They are the people with the functional knowledge, and they often do not appreciate a Thinker tinkering with a process and introducing change. Doers can do without change finding change disruptive to the existing processes, particularly if a process concept has not been tested and proven. With a Doer, something is either black or white with no shades of grey.

These two personality types appear to be in conflict with one another and, although conflict, change and improvement can be good. To make these two personalities work, a third personality is the Implementer. He/she works with the thinkers to shape, refine, prototype and design and a process. The implementer then works with the Doer, the one that will perform the work, to resource and implement the process. The Implementer on a perfect Project Team is the Project Manager. Together, Thinker’s, Implementers and Doers work together to bring a project to a successful outcome.

5 High Performance Employee Motivation Techniques

These employee motivation techniques are the key to boosting team and business performance. Implementing these five techniques will deliver increased performance and create a workplace that buzzes.

Provide Meaningful and Challenging Work

When people feel that the work they are doing is meaningful makes a difference in some way and provides them with challenges that stretch them they become internally motivated. In other words they don't need anyone standing around coercing them into higher levels of performance.

Even the most mundane of work can be motivating if the leader helps the team member put into context the value their work brings either to the consumer or to the organization.

A great leader is able to help inspire and motivate people by getting them to see beyond the immediacy of what they are doing to the bigger picture.

Providing challenging work is also intrinsically motivating for people. The vast majority of people want to feel that their potential is being regularly challenged. When the team leader provides the team member with the environment that enables, for example, learning new techniques or taking on additional tasks this can engage them more fully.

Set Clear Targets and Expectations and Measure Performance

Imagine you were bowling and no-one told you the aim of the game and each time you bowled the ball as it got half way down the alley a curtain came down so you couldn't actually see how many pins you had knocked over. How long do you think you'd remain interested, excited, engaged by the game? If you are like most people not too long!

It's the same in organizational life. People can be all fired up and ready to give of their best, but if they don't know what is excellent performance or don't know when they've performed excellently or don't know what the aim of the game is ... you can pretty well shut the gate on motivation. Spelling out specific targets, goals, and expectations for behavior and performance need not be anything complicated ... it just needs to be done and people need to get regular and timely feedback on how they are performing against those goals.

Give Regular, Direct, Supportive Feedback

Feedback,  both positive and performance improving, is vital to continuous improvement and done well it motivates and inspires people to continually move toward using more of their potential.

Feedback needs to be timely, specific and presented in such a way that the individual is clear about what behaviors or skills they need to modify (or continue using) in order to improve performance

Design People's Roles So They Can Use Their Strengths

Assigning people to specific tasks and duties that play to their strengths is one of the best employee motivation techniques. Research has shown, more than anything, people who are able to make use of their strengths on a regular basis while at work are more likely to work in teams that perform at higher levels.

When people are playing to their strengths on a regular basis - they feel effective, focused and fulfilled, a win for them and for their organization. The person becomes more internally motivated, feeling upbeat and enthused by what they are doing and will feel inspired to continue more.

Enable Input and Choice In How Work Gets Done

95% of people want to do a good job, feel pride in what they do, have good relationships with their co-workers and feel they are contributing in a meaningful way. In other words, they are set up by their own internal nature to be a high performer.

Unfortunately in many organizations managers turn the majority of their focus toward the 5% of people who are allergic to work and then instigate rules, policies and practices (such as close supervision) to control this 5%. As you can imagine all that does is demean, annoy and demotivate the 95% who are motivated to do their best. You are wasting the talent and natural motivation that the overwhelming majority of people bring to the workplace.

Provide people with a forum where they can provide their input in to how work is performed. Giving people control over how they perform the work is intensely motivating.

Raging advocates

Develop your customer into a raging advocate

A lot of money is wasted from poor marketing strategy or just dumb advertising. 50% of advertising is wasted but which 50%? 

Let’s go back to basic marketing to learn how to improve this.  It’s really very simple. Know who your customer is and know who is not your customer.

Once you have figured that out then determine what their urgent needs and wants are.  Then make sure your product or service delivers value at a reasonable price to fulfill that want or need.  Also, make sure that value delivered surpasses anything a competitor to that target group is offering.  

After that,  stand behind the sale and develop your target customer into a raging advocate for your company.  How do you do that?  By showing you care about their opinion by listening to what they have to say and quickly solving any problems that may come up.

Channel all of your marketing efforts into owning that target niche.  Focus your media advertising, public relations dollars, event advertising and internet investment towards your target market.  Google can help you on that last part. You will see a higher return on  investment from your cash spent.

Put away your shotgun and get out the rifle. Or, another way of putting it…. don’t sell bikinis to Eskimos and don’t market down parkas at the equator.  Got it?  Good!!

Solution Selling

Solution  Selling

1) START AT THE BEGINNING

Before you can identify a PROBLEM you must take the time to learn about the prospect and the types of problems they face in their daily business operations. Ask your prospect open-ended questions focused on how they use the types of products or services you offer. Know your strengths as a potential supplier and know what you bring to the table that is UNIQUE as contrasted with your competitors.

2) BE A PROBLEM-SOLVER

The information gathering process may require multiple meetings over a period of time. Here you are beginning to establish yourself as someone that truly has the prospect's INTERESTS in mind, not just someone with a desire to sell something and move on. After you have a good understanding of problems and opportunities for improvement you can begin to offer potential SOLUTIONS to your prospect. The solution selling process is all about gaining a series of agreements using a step-by-step process. Successful solution selling requires the salesperson to navigate through the following steps before closing the sale.

3) WHAT IS THE PROBLEM OR UNMET NEED?

Is it only a matter of time before this need results in lost revenues, profits or productivity? Or is it something that would be good to resolve but realistically will not impact operations to any significant degree? If it's the latter, there may never be a compelling REASON to make a change -- therefore is it worth the effort from you to sell a solution if the odds are against the prospect taking action? It's best to face this early in the selling process before you INVEST significant time and effort. Once a problem has been uncovered, you want to gain agreement from your prospect that there is indeed a gap here that could be filled with your offering.

4) HOW CRITICAL IS THIS PROBLEM?

On the other hand, perhaps your competitor has had a recent history of erratic quality in their product or service -- one that could cause disruption in daily work flow and subsequent lost revenue to your prospect, which might place their customer relationships at risk. This can spell big OPPORTUNITY for you as an alternative supplier. Framing the potential business consequences of the problem and gaining agreement from your prospect from a "what if" perspective sets the stage for a sense of URGENCY to take action on your proposal and also provides guidance on the true monetary worth of your solution. At this point, if your contact has agreed there is a problem in need of a solution, he or she has a personal stake in advancing your proposal. Now in the next step, we focus on the decision process.

5)  WHO HAS AUTHORITY TO TAKE ACTION?

Can your contact act on his or her own? Does your proposal require the involvement and acceptance of others? Will others also have to SIGN OFF on the proposal before the sale is closed? It is critical at this point to define how the buying decision is made and who is involved. Now is the time to bring those additional decision makers into the selling PROCESS if they are not already involved. Be prepared to address objections and different viewpoints. Your original contact should be actively involved in promoting your solution at this stage.

6) GAIN THE FINAL AGREEMENT

By this point, you have raised the visibility of this unmet need and involved EVERYONE that touches it from a decision-making standpoint. You have an internal advocate for your proposed solution. And more importantly, by following this process you have established your CREDENTIALS as someone interested in solving problems and adding value beyond simply providing a product or service. Now you might have to amend your proposal to address new concerns or perspectives, but your professional approach and desire to solve a real problem significantly increase the odds of closing the sale.