My CEO Life

Here is another question that came through recently

My question for you is kind of simple but not a question that many people would ask or even care about. However, I am an assistant coach of a baseball team at one of the local christian high schools. The school does not have a baseball field nor does it have very much money to spare for one. How do I go about getting donations from businesses to be able to build a baseball field for this school, and how and what would you recommend saying or asking them?

I would like to answer this question from the business perspective … ie what is a businesses view on charitable donations.

Firstly, i would like to say that our business has a strong community spirit and believes that we need to give back to those that are much more needy than us.  We have set up a foundation internally and we use that to channel some funds to the causes that we believe are best aligned with what we are about as a business.  For us, we are strong supporters of bridging the the digital divide – ie helping those without access (especially kids) to get access to the intenret.  The reason is simple – without knowledge, a kid will struggle as it moves into adult life.

So, how do we approach charitable donations.  Firstly if it is within the foundation, we approach those organisations that we believe best meet our overall foundation goal.

Secondly, if someone approaches us, we firstly measure their requirements against the objectives of the foundation – if there is alignment then we chat and see what they can do for us as well as what they really want from us.

Now if you are like the author of the question above – you have to find organisations in your area that are aligned with what you are trying to acheive and for whom you will have a clear value proposition – perhaps marketing / branding that can help promote their brand in the area.

I would also start door knocking … at the end of the day you have to do some hard work to get the $ through the door.  When you do find a great orgnisation to work with, look after them and they will look after you.

We have recently purchased 2 smaller businesses.   Many people spend lots of time on the deal doing and not enough thinking about how to integrate the businesses.

Integration is the make or break of any deal.  On paper it may look great but if the people dont want to play ball, then often the value goes up in smoke.  Culture has a lot to do with it and the merging of the cultures is critical.

The way we are approaching the integration of the two companies is simple and one that i would recommend to all people.

1. We have appointed a senior person (direct report to the Chief Executive Officer) as a project sponsor – their job is to make sure that the integration occurs in the agreed time
2. We have appointed a dedicated integration manager who has overall authority to make the integration work – this is a full time role
3. We have clearly identified the org structure / reporting lines / seating etc … to ensure that people rapidly have a new home
4. We have set an agressive 4 – 6 week deadline to get the businesses integrated

In the integration process, we are primarily focusing on the sales / product / pricing / go to market processes first – this will ensure that there is the least amount of confusion in the market.

Well there are some thoughts today … perhaps how we negotiated the deals tomorrow

I recently has the following comment on my site

Curious whether you have any  leadership development requirements at your company? Thinking about the idea of implementing Six Sigma, getting prepared to suggest.  Something like all managers required to become green belts, senior managers black belts.  Thoughts?

We don’t have any generic management or leadership training in the business.  However, what we do do is require all staff to develop their own personal development plan.  Once these plans have been developed by the employee, they are reviewed with their manager.  Those that we have identified as future leaders, are then encouraged to add some management training to their personal development plans.

For management training, we have two types – external and internal.  We pay for employees to do their MBA’s (on a part time basis) so that they get a good view of the formal way to approach management training.  In addition, i am a firm fan of informal, on the job training.  By this i mean that we give them constant clear direction, feedback.  I think there is nothing better than clearly letting people know how they go.

In the execution of personal development plans, we tend to pay for their development as long as it is related (even indirectly) to the business.

I often find myself sitting in a aluminum tube at 30,000 feet for hours on end. I do lots of long haul flying and constantly feel the need to make sure that i use the time alone to make great progress.

So what do i do – i split my time into 3 broad buckets

1. Email processing - i love to get through my emails. My constant objective is to get to zero emails in the inbox. I am getting very good at the short – one line – answer. The team knows when i am off the plane as they get bombarded with emails. However i always make sure that they are short, direct and have an outcome.
2. General reading – i always carry around 5 – 10 pieces of reading. They are combinations of magazines i like to read and articles printed from the internet. The objective here is to finish them and leave them on the plane. I dont do not read confidential stuff on planes – you just never know. I also have the habit of ripping great articles from the magazines, scanning them and sharing them with the team.
3. Podcasts - i always have an ipod with me loaded with the most recent podcasts that i love to listen to. i try to get through as many as possible so that i am up to date with what is happening around the world.

Oh well … back on a plane.