REPOST: Resistance: A Stranglehold on Business

Why do people resist change, especially in the workplace? This TIME article shares some insights regarding this matter. 

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The ability to adapt and change is essential to business success. But not everyone embraces change so easily. These tips can help you identify and eliminate resistance in the workplace.

Anyone familiar with the Star Trek universe knows that resistance is futile. Unfortunately, real-life resistance to change is alive and well and often firmly entrenched in many small businesses. Common signs include ideas that never reach fruition and initiatives that go nowhere.

There’s a huge difference between taking a conservative approach and failing to adapt to changes in the market, in customer needs or in technology. Resistance on that level can have serious consequences and leave you wide open to competitors who are willing and able to adapt and capture your market share.

In an article at Small Business Computing, Rick Maurer, an organizational consultant and author of “Beyond the Wall of Resistance,” notes that workforce resistance causes approximately 70 percent of organizational change to fail. You can fight back using these steps to identify resistance and break down the barriers to effective change.

Step 1: Identify resistance

Blatant criticism is an obvious sign of resistance. However, the other side of that coin is the easy yes, and while more subtle, it’s no less dangerous. Employees or managers who agree quickly may not have thought things through thoroughly, whether out of a desire to be seen as cooperative or to avoid giving offense. Either way, they might not really understand what they’ve agreed to, and that quick yes can quickly turn into a protracted, passive-aggressive no.

Take the time to explain your thinking, and make that sure everyone understands the full scope of the changes and why they’re necessary.

Step 2: Identify the reasons

Employees resist change for three basic reasons. In order of severity: they don’t get it, they don’t like it, or they don’t like you. Look for someone on your team who’s harboring at least one of these perspectives anytime you have a project, processes or other business initiative that’s stalled.

Step 3: Fix it

If they don’t get it, you need to find a new way to deliver your message. Repeating yourself won’t help; they heard you the first time. Instead, try a different approach or provide additional education or training.

If they don’t like it, chances are someone finds something about the new process frightening or uncomfortable. Look at the situation from their perspective. This can help you present the information in a way that addresses their fears or concerns.

If they don’t like you, simply be direct and ask them. You may have to press further if all you get is a polite, but evasive response. Maurer believes these situations are usually a matter of trust. If you outrank the person or people involved, use an anonymous survey with a comment area to discover reasons behind the lack of trust.

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This Bertrand Management Group blog site provides tips and relevant articles on business and management.

An online brand identity: Creating and owning it

Image Source: marketing.revriv.com

A brand identity singles out a particular product, service, or company. It may refer to taglines, color schemes, logos, and trademarks. It represents a reputation and it reflects everything equated with the brand. The key to building a strong online brand identity is consistency.

The first step to enhance brand identity lies on the visuals, which includes the brand logo and color schemes. As the core of the visuals, the brand logo should be versatile, that is, usable in different online platforms—from websites to blogs to social media channels.

Image Source: digital-results.com

In terms of color scheme, matching the brand’s main color to those used in other platforms is like waving a flag. For example, on Facebook, one can enhance the page’s overall identity by customizing the cover photo. On Twitter, the brand could wear the time-worn color theme that marks the brand’s territory on the color wheel. The goal is to realign ongoing materials in every platform for consistency, especially for online campaigns.

For social media and websites, on the other hand, messaging must be unchanged and should hark back to similar names, key phrases, and slogans. This makes the brand more recognizable and consistent.

Image Source:forbes.com

Bertrand Management Group is a California-based business-consulting firm that helps clients develop strategies for precise business goals. Employing highly skilled consultants, the firm identifies business issues and recommends solutions to help businesses in their day-to-day operations. To know more about the company, follow this Twitter page.

REPOST: Lead Your Employees Somewhere Positive and Other Must-Read Business Tips

This Entrepreneur.com article consolidates some useful tips for business owners.

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Business owners know more acutely than most people that change is inevitable. It is a fact of life. But not all change is positive, and it becomes difficult to lead employees when they think you are taking them in a bad direction, says Mark Sanborn, president of Sanborn & Associates Inc., a Lonetree, Colo.-based leadership development firm.

But that doesn't mean your employees don't have guts and grit. "They can even handle the challenges and sacrifices of a new undertaking if they believe there is a payoff on arrival," says Sanborn. He tells the anecdote of a client whose vision statement for his company was full of financial goals but was silent when it came to quality of life for employees.

"I wasn't surprised that nobody could remember what the vision was, nor care about achieving it," Sanborn says. "Their vision statement became effective when it was rewritten to express the future for all stakeholders, including employees." 

Treat customers with respect.
Selling doesn't come naturally to everyone. Some people feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there for the sake of their idea, product or service. One way to help yourself relax is to make a connection with your prospective client, says Cristi Young, founder of No.2 Creative, a New York City-based branding firm. Treat him or her like a person. "You'd be surprised how many people forget to say hello, ask how their weekend was, or remember a personal detail they shared with you last time you met. Connect and care first." 

To retain employees, give them a meaningful career path.
Chances are you can't compete with Google and Facebook when it comes to employee salaries, but a high salary is not the only carrot you can provide to retain top employees. One way to keep them around is to provide them with opportunities for real growth in their career, says Carolyn Betts, founder of San Francisco-based Betts Recruiting. She recommends having a frank discussion with employees on their yearly employment anniversaries about how they see themselves growing within your company. "Share your thoughts with where you see them headed and what opportunities exist for them to continue to be challenged," she says. 

Base your marketing strategy on customer behavior.
As a business owner, you may welcome the rise of mobile traffic even while assuming you can shoehorn your old marketing strategies onto the new platforms. Not so, says Jayson DeMers, founder of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based SEO agency: "If you're not delivering your marketing messages in a way that's tailored specifically to the experience of a smartphone or tablet user, chances are you're turning customers away." Find out how your customers are using their mobile devices, and what their expectations are. "Data from your existing website analytics program can give you mobile insights, as can targeted surveys, [which can] form the foundation of your mobile content strategy," DeMers says. 

Choose investment bankers, not investment banks.
When choosing an investment banker to sell your business, the experience and know-how of the individual(s) doing your deal is more important than the firm to which their name is attached, says Jay Turo, chief executive of Growthink, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm. "Information technology and social media have leveled the playing field between big and small investment banking firms," he says. Your personal chemistry with the banker also matters. Ask yourself how, when and where you prefer to communicate, and then evaluate bankers on how well they match up.

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Bertrand Management Group helps business owners achieve their business goals through careful planning and execution. For more tips and updates, visit this blog site.

REPOST: 10 Ways to Motivate Anyone

This article from Inc.com shares the importance of understanding how certain types of employees think and how business leaders can use this information to better motivate them.

Image source: motivateplay.com

I am often asked about how I keep employees inspired and productive. It's an essential question since companies today must accomplish more, with fewer people. The most successful start-ups must be lean, nimble, and fierce.

In a nutshell, you should hire bright, energetic, innovative employees. Then offer them the right incentives--the ones that will impact their personal brain and personality types--to keep them mentally and emotionally invested in doing their best.

It's impossible to talk about motivation without mentioning Drive, a book by best-selling author Daniel Pink. (His TED lecture was turned into a fabulous video.) Pink notes that people perform best when they are given autonomy, opportunity for mastery, and the belief that their task is meaningful. He says money is not the best motivator, and that employees want to be "players, not pawns."

Pink believes Google's "20% time," in which employees may spend one day a week on whatever they want is a shining example of how allowing intrinsically-based motivations (a sense of accomplishment or purpose) can flourish. Personal endeavors from "20% time" resulted in Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense. Long before Google--back in 1948--3M instituted the "15% solution" or "dream time," which yielded both Scotch Tape and Post-It Notes.

Image source: slowdownfast.com

There's no question that intrinsic motivation is essential. However, I do not agree with Pink that all extrinsic motivation (raises, bonuses, commissions, awards, titles, flex time, and other perks) is harmful. A skillful entrepreneur keeps employees motivated with a combination of both.

That said, there is no cookie-cutter approach to motivating your people. What inspires one person may leave the next cold. When you understand an employee's thinking and behavioral preferences, you'll be able to maximize his or her enthusiasm. This will help you get your workforce aligned and moving in the same direction, and you'll see incredible returns.

1.   Analytical types want to know that a project is valuable, and that their work makes a difference to its success. They need a leader who excels in a particular area, and whose expertise they believe benefits the group. They prefer compensation that is commensurate with their contribution. If they have done a tremendous amount of work on their own, don't expect them to be happy if you reward the whole team.

2.   People who are "structural" by nature want to know their work aids the company's progress. They prefer a leader who is organized, competent, and good with details. They like to be rewarded in writing, in a timely manner, in a way specific to the task. An encouraging email is appropriate to communicate with them.

3.   Social people want to feel personally valued, and that what they are doing has an impact on a project. They go the extra mile for a leader who expresses faith in their abilities. They prefer to be rewarded in person with a gesture that is from the heart. If your own preference is for written communication, send a handwritten note to a particularly social employee.

4.   Innovative employees must buy into a cause. To them, the big picture matters more than the individual who is leading the charge. They prefer to be rewarded with something unconventional and imaginative, and would find a whimsical token of your esteem very meaningful.

5.   Quiet staffers don't need a lot of fanfare, but they appreciate private, one-on-one encouragement.

6.   Expressive people feel more motivated when assignments are openly discussed and an open door is available. They like public recognition, with pomp, and ceremony.

7.   Peacekeepers hope everyone will move in the same direction. They'll never demand a reward or recognition, so it's up to you to offer it.

8.   Hard-drivers are independent thinkers. If they agree with you, they'll be highly motivated. They will let you know what they'd like as an extrinsic reward, and they tend to want whatever it is right away.

9.   Those who are focused team members must have confidence in the leader and in the project, or their motivation may falter. They want know up front what kind of reward they can expect. Make sure you follow through on whatever is promised.

10.   Flexible people go along with the team, as long as a project does not contradict their morals or beliefs. They're also happy with any kind of recognition.

Image source: robertsontrainingsystems.com

Watch for the weakest link among your employees. If you have a slacker who consistently does less than everyone else but seems to get away with it, this can dampen the motivation of everyone else.



Bertrand Management Group is a management consulting company that seeks to provide effective solutions to help businesses grow. Find on this Facebook page more resources on management strategies.

REPOST: Look After The Suits - They Drive Competitive Advantage More Than Strategy Or Innovators

Sebastian Bailey shares in his article that every individual has a unique contribution to a business' success or failure.

Image Source: forbes.com

What makes the biggest difference to revenue, brilliantly creative people, a ground breaking strategy, lean processes or strong middle management?

In 2008, MIT School of Management researcher Ethan Mollick set about to discover what has a greater impact on performance within the computer game industry: people or process. Armed with data about the revenue and ratings of 1,536 games across 602 firms, he looked at what proportion of performance could be accounted for by individual contributors – the game designers and managers – and organizational factors. Controlling for team size, the year the game was released, the genre, publisher and whether the game was a sequel or included licensed content, he discovered that individual contributors accounted for 25% of the difference in revenue generated and 19% of the difference in ratings. This was at least equal to the variance accounted for by organizational factors. What’s more, individuals in managerial roles had a greater impact on performance than the creative designers. When the blockbusters and flops were removed – the top and bottom 10% according to revenue – designers accounted for just 7% of the variance, compared to 27% accounted for by managers.

Far from being interchangeable, individuals uniquely contribute to firms’ success or failure. And even in an industry which rewards creativity, managers had a greater influence on performance than the innovators. For all the hoopla surrounding the innovation process and the attention and rewards lavished on innovative individuals, managers are the ones who facilitate communication, encourage organizational commitment and, ultimately, translate that innovation into reality. Perhaps it is no surprise that Tim Cook went from COO to CEO – for all its emphasis on the shiny and new, Apple knows that what really drives success is good quality operations.

Of course, a single entrepreneur can influence an entire market; some say that top computer programmers produce the same amount of work as 10 – 20 average programmers and, according to some estimates, 6% of publishing scientists account for 50% of published articles. Clearly, individuals do matter. But few industries pay as much attention to individuals at the lower level, like middle managers, who are often largely responsible for making the strategic vision happen.

The lesson for business leaders from Mollick’s research? Middle managers matter more than you think – so it pays to invest in them. 

Follow this Bertrand Management Twitter page for more updates on the management consultancy industry.  

REPOST: Be your own boss: How to set up a franchise

This Economic Times article gives tips on how to be a successful entrepreneur through franchising.

Frustrated with your job? Feel like strangling your colleagues? Want to push your boss from the top of a cliff? Cry buckets of tears when you get your pay cheque? Want to start your own business?

If you have answered in affirmative to any of these questions, here's fast and safe way to be an instant and successful entrepreneur. No, we aren't spinning the spiel of a swindler. As thousands of Indians have discovered, there is a less risky way to start a business than setting up your own venture: franchise. The franchise industry has opened a wide window for many would-be entrepreneurs, who have the zeal and the zest, but not enough business expertise. Buying a franchise lets you be your own boss in any field that you are passionate about without the added worries that is a given with your own venture—ideation, brand building, infrastructure, legal problems.

The best part? You get help to start a business anywhere, at any age and with any budget. Bangalore-based Lourdu Mary retired as a primary school teacher five years ago. "However, I got bored within a few years, but finding another job at my age was impossible. When I came to know that I could open my own pre-school with just Rs 3.5 lakh, I jumped at the opportunity," says the 65-year-old. The company, My Apple School, provides the curriculum, support and training to her staff.

The supporting appeal of the franchise industry has been the reason for the surge in its popularity in the past decade. Currently worth Rs 82,500 crore, it is estimated to grow to about Rs 2.91 lakh crore by 2017, according to the Indian Franchise Report 2012. The main reason is that both domestic and international companies want to expand their footprints, but don't consider it a viable proposition to do it on their own due to operational and financial pressures.

They prefer to look for partners who can invest to run a branch of their business. From international brands like Domino's and Dunkin' Donuts, to domestic ones like NIIT and Naturals, a lot of companies are opting for the franchising model. It's estimated that the franchise industry is growing at a rapid pace of 40% a year. One of the biggest gainers of this warp-speed growth is Ravi Jaipuria, chairman of the privately held RJ Corp. He is India's newest billionaire, with a fortune estimated at Rs 8,250 crore, and has built his fortune as a franchisee for brands like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, KFC and Costa Coffee. So, do you want to get on this super-fast bandwagon to business bonanza?

Where should you start?

The first thing you need to decide is whether you are fit to be a franchisee. Don't be blinded by dreams of instant riches or assume that because you have a ready-made business plan, you can relax in a hammock and soak the sun. Running a franchise will require as much hard work and effort as running your own venture. Says Gaurav Marya, president of Franchise India: "A franchisee needs to understand that while he has bought a brand name, and with it the potential clientele, the onus is on him to grow the business. It's not an 'invest and forget' option."

The business also comes with stringent conditions about how the workplace will look, the products that will be used, the programme menu that will be implemented, the royalty that will have to be paid, and so on. Individual innovation is rarely possible and thinking out of the box could be frowned upon. So, carefully study the pros and cons before you sign a franchise deal.

Once you've made up your mind to buy a franchise, you'll have to decide what exactly to do. With almost 3,700 companies in about 15 diverse sectors, from food and footwear to furniture and furnishing, the choices can befuddle you. Go through the story, 'Which franchise is best for you?' to figure out where you should dip your toes. On deciding where you want to start from, you can narrow down your choices. Marya advises that if you're a newbie, it may be better to start a business in the field of your professional expertise. "When you understand the intricacies of an industry, you are well-equipped to handle the daily business and any crises that may crop up," he says. Also, you will be in tune with the realities of the sector, which could help you identify the right company to partner.

Angad Singh followed this tenet when he moved back to India after working for a couple of years at a hotel in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Ravinder Singh, had taken VRS from a bank, but wanted to continue working. The father-son duo invested their savings to buy a franchise of New York Pizza and Fried Chicken in Chandigarh. "Both my father and I are passionate about food, but neither of us had the expertise to set up and run a business. Taking a franchise was the logical answer," says the 26-year-old.

Image Source: articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com

Bertrand Management Group assists businesses in their operations, manpower, and management strategies. Know more information about the industry by visiting this Facebook page.

REPOST: "Seven Rules for Managing Creative-But-Difficult People"

In many cases, managers find that some of their most creative people are difficult to manage, and as a result they resort to different tactics just to get them to comply.  But the iron fist isn't the answer to handling creative people, and this Harvard Business Review article provides some insightful tips on how to make the best out of these employees:

Image credit: Harvard Business Review

Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant? Perhaps — but you can't just get rid of them. In fact, unless you learn to get the best out of your creative employees, you will sooner or later end up filing for bankruptcy. Conversely, if you just hire and promote people who are friendly and easy to manage, your firm will be mediocre at best. Suppressed creativity is a malign organizational tumour. Although every organization claims to care about innovation, very few are willing to do what it takes to keep their creative people happy, or at least, productive. So what are the keys to engaging and retaining creative employees?

1. Spoil them and let them fail: Like parents who celebrate their children's mess: show your creatives unconditional support and encourage them to do the absurd and fail. Innovation comes from uncertainty, risk, and experimentation — if you know it will work, it isn't creative. Creative people are the natural experimenters, so let them try and test and play. Of course, there are costs associated with experimentation — but these are lower than the cost of NOT innovating.

2. Surround them by semi-boring people: The worst thing you can do to a creative employee is to force them to work with someone like them — they would compete for ideas, brainstorm eternally, or simply ignore each other. That said, you cannot surround creatives with really boring or conventional people — they would not understand them, and fall out. In line with this, recent research indicates that teams made up of diverse members who are open to taking each others' perspective perform most creatively.

The solution, then, is to support your creatives with colleagues who are too conventional to challenge their ideas, but unconventional enough to collaborate with them. These colleagues will need to pay attention to details, mundane executional processes, and do the dirty work: Messi needs Busquets and Puyol; Ronaldo needs Alonso and Ramos.

3. Only involve them in meaningful work: Natural innovators tend to have more vision, research I've done indicates. They see the bigger picture and are able to understand why things matter (even if they cannot explain it). The downside to this is that they simply won't engage in meaningless work. This all-or-nothing approach to work mirrors the bipolar temperament of creative artists, who perform well only when inspired — and inspiration is fueled by meaning. This rule can also be applied to other employees: everyone is more creative when driven by their genuine interests and a hungry mind.

As novelist John Irving said, "the reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me". At the same time, in any organization there will be employees who are less interested in, well, doing interesting work; they are satisfied with simply clocking in and out, and are incentivized by external rewards. Companies should ensure that trivial or meaningless work is assigned to these employees.

4. Don't pressure them: Creativity is usually enhanced by giving people more freedom and flexibility at work. If you like structure, order and predictability, you are probably not creative. However, we are all more likely to perform more creatively in spontaneous, unpredictable circumstances — because we cannot rely on our habits. Don't constrain your creative employees; don't force them to follow processes or structures. Let them work remotely and outside normal hours; don't ask where they are, what they are doing or how they do it. This is the secret to managing Don Draper, and why he never went to work for a bigger competitor. This is also why so many top athletes fail to make the transition from a small to a big team, and why business founders are usually unhappy to remain in charge of their ventures once they are acquired by a bigger company.

5. Don't overpay them: There is a longstanding debate about the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Over the past two decades, psychologists have provided compelling evidence for the so-called "over-justification" effect, namely the process whereby higher external rewards impair performance by depressing a person's genuine or intrinsic interest. Most notably, two large-scale meta-analyses reported that, when tasks are inherently meaningful (and creative tasks are certainly in this condition), external rewards diminish engagement. This is true in both adults and children, especially when people are rewarded merely for performing a task. However, providing positive feedback (praises) does not harm intrinsic motivation, so long as the feedback is perceived as genuine. [Editor's note: This is clearly a controversial point; Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic has expanded on it in his new article, "Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research." In line with his comments in the thread below, we've also updated the header on this section to be more accurate.]

The moral of the story? The more you pay people to do what they love, the less they will love it. In the words of Czikszentmihalyi, "the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake." More importantly, people with a talent for innovation are not driven by money. Data from our research archive, which includes over 50,000 managers from 20 different countries, indicates quite clearly that the more imaginative and inquisitive people are, the more they are driven by recognition and sheer scientific curiosity rather than commercial needs.

6. Surprise them: Few things are as aggravating to creatives as boredom. Indeed, creative people are prewired to seek constant change, even when it's counterproductive. They take a different route to work every day, even if it gets them lost, and never repeat an order at a restaurant, even if they really liked it. Creativity is linked to higher tolerance of ambiguity. Creatives love complexity and enjoy making simple things complex rather than vice-versa. Instead of looking for the answer to a problem, they prefer to find a million answers or a million problems. It is therefore essential that you keep surprising your creative employees; failing that, you should at least let them create enough chaos to make their own lives less predictable.

7. Make them feel important: As T.S. Eliot noted, "most of the trouble in this world is caused by people wanting to be important". And the reason is that others fail to recognize them. Fairness is not treating everyone the same, but like they deserve. Every organization has high and low potential employees, but only competent managers can identify them. If you fail to recognize your employees' creative potential, they will go somewhere where they feel more valued.

A final caveat: even when you are able to manage your creative employees, it does not mean that you should let them manage others. In fact, natural innovators are rarely gifted with leadership skills. There is a profile for good leaders, and a profile for creative people — and they are rather different. Steve Jobs had better relationships with gadgets than people, and most Google engineers are utterly disinterested in management. One of the reasons for the rapid plateau of start-ups is that their founders tend to remain in charge. They should learn from Mark Zuckerberg who brought in Sheryl Sandberg to make up for his own leadership deficits. Research confirms the stereotypical view that corporate innovators — intrapreneurs — exhibit many of the psychopathic characteristics that prevent them from being effective leaders: they are rebellious, anti-social, self-centered and often too low in empathy to care about the welfare of others. But manage them well, and their inventions will delight us all.

Read more updates on structure development, strategic planning, and operational improvement by visiting this Bertrand Management Group Facebook page.

On staying small: Why growing your business might not be worth it

Image Source: blog.cloudhq.net

If you’re a business owner, you may have dreamt of turning your fledgling business into something more—a consumer electronics giant, like Apple, or a leader in Internet services and products, like Google. However, building a business from scratch and growing it into a multibillion-dollar corporation may not be worth it.

NationalJournal.com mentions that out of all the small business owners surveyed across the United States, only 24 percent said that they want to grow their businesses to become “as large as possible” even though President Obama has been pushing for a bill that could potentially cut taxes on smaller businesses to encourage growth and increased hiring of workers, which in turn could revitalize the US job market.

Image Source: smallbusiness.chron.com

Why? Investopedia.com lists a few possible reasons why many small business owners do not want to expand their business:

• They’ll incur less stress.

• The risks of hurting the business remain little.

• They won’t have an increase in workload.

• They won’t have to deal with problems regarding hiring people.

• They’ll have time for things that really matter (i.e., spending time with family and friends).

The bottom line is that although expanding your business might be a good idea, business growth does not just depend on having a dream and setting some goals. It requires sacrifices that you must be willing to make for results that may or may not be worth the effort.

Image Source: blog.michiganadvantage.org

Bertrand Management Group is a California-based consulting firm that specializes in the development of business coaching skills and business strategies. Visit this Facebook page for more information on expanding a business.

REPOST: Full stack business development

What are the qualities of a full stack business developer? Learn more from this Forbes.com article.

Image Source: forbes.com

In the language of technology, a “Full Stack Developer” is someone who understands how to code every level of a computer: from the fundamentals of server processes to backend programming to database architecture and front-end design. They’re among the most valued members of an organization, able to translate between the layers of a system. A Full Stack Developer can be your best resource whether you’re planning for top-notch performance, diagnosing a tricky situation that’s eluded your best specialists, or are just quickly hacking your way to an MVP.

Allow me to introduce the idea of a similar unicorn: the “Full Stack Business Development” person. A Full Stack BD understands the complexities and interactions between every layer of long-term value:

The Customer Layer: a Full Stack BD knows that customer development is just as important as partnership development. They understand what motivates, what upsets, what delights your current and prospective customers.

The Product Layer: a Full Stack BD knows how to identify and solve the needs unearthed in the Customer Layer. They inform the products and services that create value for customers and help advance their own organization’s pursuit of long-term value.

The Strategy Layer: a Full Stack BD knows how look before they leap, to evaluate the best paths to long-term value. They are comfortable directing attention back towards internal resources like product development or marketing, but can also lead the charge in selling the idea of partnership when the best path leads outside the company walls.

The Human Layer: a Full Stack BD knows how to reach and connect with people, to communicate the value of an idea to an individual and to an organization. They know how to establish a bond based and build relationships that provide back in equal proportion to everyone involved.

The Relationship Layer: a Full Stack BD knows how to keep the balance between what’s given and what’s received, when to tow the company line and when to advocate on behalf of another. They know how keep value flowing, so that it’s sustainable and worth the effort.

The path to becoming good at Business Development can be start from a background sales, or marketing, or finance, or partnerships, or accounting, or liberal arts, or law. But becoming great at it requires the full stack.

Bertrand Management Group offers a variety of services that fit the every need of its clients. Follow this Twitter page or visit this site to get more links on business development.

Why America's businesses need faster broadband networks

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, argues for the improvement of America’s broadband infrastructure on Forbes.com. At the heart of his argument is that America needs this upgrade sooner, rather than later, in order to keep its competitiveness rating high.

Image Source: mashable.com

Indeed, if the spread and increase of popularity of modern mobile devices serve as indicators of what public demand will be like in the future, then it points to the need for constant connectivity. And to attend to this demand, there is the need for speeds that go beyond megabits.

Genachowski points out that the upgrade of the information infrastructure goes well beyond consumer convenience, which is already an important element that businesses must always strive to attain. It is necessary to further push for economic growth and job creation in the industries.

Image Source: marketingpilgrim.com

There are some broadband providers who believe otherwise. Currently available broadband speeds have kept up with what mobile devices can handle, and there has been little demand for faster alternatives.

However, if innovation remains among the nation’s greatest concerns, then the information infrastructure necessary to support new findings, even if it seems too advanced for its time, must already be put in place. America’s businesses need all the advantages they can get in order to encourage the country’s innovators to create cutting-edge technologies, and to attract more of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs.

Image Source: cable.co.uk

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Last man standing: Old-fashioned techniques companies use to hire employees

Image Source: FemInspire.com

Many young applicants are left jobless not because there are no job opportunities, but because most companies employ old-fashioned techniques in hiring, making it hard for the applicants to ace an interview or negotiate an acceptable job offer.

Management consulting firms, from McKinsey & Company to Bertrand Management Group, are seeking ways to help other companies innovate their recruitment processes. In this day and age, outdated processes are becoming less effective, and companies must adapt to the changing times. Below are some old-fashioned techniques in hiring that some companies still employ to this day:

Image Sourcee: GlassDoor.com

1. Physiological stereotypes

There are studies that found that attractive people are more likely to get employed and earn more than their less attractive counterparts.

Image Source: Funtoosh.com

2. Job offers that discourage applicants

Most applicants, even the young and inexperienced, can tell whether a company is good or not based on the job offer. Companies must be more willing to negotiate with their young applicants a reasonable job offer, as fresh minds are needed to bring in new and more compelling ideas into the company.

Image Source: MedicalSalesCollege.com

3. Long application process

While it is understandable that the recruitment process takes time, it does not mean that most people are willing to wait. Most of the time, companies are left to hire the most complacent applicants who have waited the longest time to get hired. While patience is an admirable trait in an employee, some companies end up losing the best ones. In addition, a long recruitment process is actually a waste of time and resources for both the employee and employer. Time wasted for recruitment could have been used to train the employee at work.

Bertrand Management Group is a management consulting company dedicated to providing companies with efficient and effective solutions in helping their businesses grow. This Facebook page offers more resources on recruitment, coaching skills management, leadership, operational changes, and many more.

Organizational Transformation Liberating the Corporate Soul

This article by Richard Barrette shares that a lot of business leaders wonder how to unleash innovation and creativity in the workplace.

In a world where change is growing exponentially, fortunes are increasingly being won or lost on the ability of companies to anticipate trends and create products to meet these demands. But in the 21st century, unleashing innovation and creativity will not be sufficient to guarantee success. From here on, success will also hinge on whether, in the eyes of its employees and society-at-large, the company is a trusted member of the community, and a good global citizen.

Who you are is becoming just as important as what you sell. The values that corporations stand for are increasingly affecting their ability to hire the best people and sell their products. There is an awakening awareness of the causal link between the rapidly escalating environmental and social issues and the philosophy of business. Govenments and communities are recognizing that the pursuit of self-interest is not only destroying the planet’s life support systems, but the social fabric as well. The era of corporate autocracy is coming to an end. There is too much at stake for it to be otherwise.

Successful business leaders of the 21st century will need to find a dynamic balance between the interests of the corporation, the interest of the workers and the interests of society as a whole. To achieve this goal they will need to take account of the shift in values taking place in society, and the growing demand for people to find meaning and purpose in their work.



The main reason that organizations are unable to mine the creative potential of their employees is that they fail to understand the importance of linking the well-being and survival of their employees to the well-being and survival of the company. When the link between effort and reward is severed, and employees are paid to do rather than to think, there is no incentive to achieve optimal performance. It is only when people feel a direct link between their own contribution, the success of the company, and their personal reward, that they assume responsibility for the whole. When this happens they feel encouraged to fulfill their potential. In other words, moral and economic democracy are essential components of a culture that nurtures innovation and creativity, and taps human potential.

This calls for open, more transparent forms of corporate governance where individuals are encouraged and rewarded for developing their potential and making contributions that impact on the good of the whole. Such cultures can only be based on trust.

Corporate Consciousness

Corporate cultures can be categorized into seven levels:

1 Survival Consciousness Totally focused on profits. An autocratic, uncaring and fear-driven culture (corporate survival).

 2 Relationship Consciousness Benevolent dictatorship where loyalty between workers is stronger than company loyalty. Lacks flexibility and entrepreneurship.

3 Self-esteem Consciousness Desire to be the biggest or the best. Hierarchical power structure. Search for efficiency, productivity, quality and excellence (corporate fitness).

4 Transformation Self-discovery, vision, mission, and values. Balanced needs scorecard. Shift from control to trust, fear to truth, privilege to equality, and fragmentation to unity.

5 Organization Consciousness Release of innovation and creativity. Search to create conditions for cohesion, community spirit, trust, diversity, and mutual accountability. Recognition of the importance of strategic alliances with suppliers and customers. (corporate well-being).

6 Community Consciousness Voluntary environmental and social audits. Support to local community. Seach for long-term sustainability. Relationships with local suppliers.

7 Global/Society Consciousness Contribution to resolving social, human rights, and environmental issues beyond local community. Focus on ethics. Search for truth and wisdom (global/society contribution).

Transformation

Successful organizations in the 21st century will be those that complete their transformation and live out values that support the common good (three higher states of consciousness). Corporations that cannot move beyond self-interest (three lower states of consciousness) will find themselves struggling to survive. The transformation from the lower to the higher states of consciousness involves liberating the corporate soul. It demands enlightened leadership—CEOs and executives who have completed their own transformation.

The fundamental change that occurs during corporate transformation is a shift in attitude from “What’s in it for us (me)?” to “What’s best for the common good?”—a shift from “self-esteem consciousness” to “organizational consciousness.” This involves moving from an exclusive focus on the pursuit of profit to the broader pursuit of a group of objectives that are instrumental in meeting shareholder, worker, customer, supplier, community, and societal needs. In order to measure progress in all these areas, I have developed a balanced needs scorecard based on the seven levels of corporate consciousness:

Balance and Values in Practice

In Built to Last, Collins and Porras identify eighteen visionary companies that, between 1926 and 1990, achieved a growth in shareholder value 15 times greater than the general market.

Their research shows that all these companies had a strong core ideology (values + purpose), and that contrary to business school doctrine, “maximizing shareholder wealth” was not the dominant driving force of these visionary companies. They have tended to pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one. Visionary companies had objectives that transcended purely economic considerations.

When I analyzed the mission statements of the eighteen visionary companies in Built to Last, I found that sixteen had three or more objectives. The majority of their objectives (44%) concerned well-being, and only 20% concerned corporate fituess. Surprisingly only 6% of the objectives mentioned corporate survival (profits or shareholder value).

What is remarkable is that all 18 companies had objectives concerning corporate well-being, whereas 13 had objectives relating to corporate fitness, and only 6 to corporate survival.

Some of the more inspiring values-driven examples of statements adopted by these companies are:

“We are in the business of preserving and improving human life.” “People as the source of our strength.” “Improving the quality of life through technology and innovation.” “People are number one—treat them well, expect a lot, and the rest will follow.” “Corporate social responsibility.” “Honesty and integrity.”

The conclusion I reach (indeed, one of the main messages of Liberating the Corporate Soul), is that an organization's performance is directly related to its ability to tap into its human potential. For the average person, work is one of the most important ways he or she gives expression to who they are, and find their fulfillment.

When a group of people are committed to a common purpose, are given responsibility, and at the same time feel supported and trusted, then, and only then, will they tap their deepest potential. Emotional energy, not mental energy, is the true motivator of the human spirit.

Emotional energy has its source in what people believe and value. Values give meaning to people's lives. When there is an alignment between an organization's values and its employees values then people respond by fulfilling their potential and tapping their deepest levels of creativity.

Source:http://work911.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=4601