FIELD PRIORITIES

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

A business owner from Illinois called me the other day to discuss the process for developing his company’s list of key initiatives for achieving identified organizational goals. While the company executives produced the standard list of straightforward topics including sales revenue, employee staffing, net profit, and customer acquisition/retention, I suggested the business owner take a different slant on the process and conduct an operations needs assessment soliciting ideas from his Field Managers and Field Supervisors (e.g., Maintenance, Construction, Enhancements).

Ideally, this dualistic data collection effort would have defined the degree of overlap or extent of variance between the perspectives of the executive team and field management team. A true test of alignment.

Or not.

Instead of identifying “key initiatives” to be implemented, the field management team provided a consensus list of fundamental topics it believed must be examined, discussed, and redesigned to facilitate the actual adoption and roll-out of any and all “key initiatives.”

The field management team espoused the belief that the company had become reflexively fixated on lofty empirical goals, administrative procedures (e.g., BOSS LM, web site upgrade, security systems), and sales and marketing efforts (e.g., campaigns, calendars, events), for the past handful of years, that the actual field organization (i.e., the employees who actually drive gross margin, job quality, and customer service) had literally been relegated to after-thought status.

And don’t we all like to be taken for granted, forgotten, or patronized?

The initial strategic intent of the needs assessment had quickly become a call for action, to reinstitute practical inclusion for the field organization by allocating significant attention, resources, and follow-up to keep the operational engine humming at the optimal level the organization had historically become accustomed to rely upon.

1) Respect, Recognition, Discipline/Reprimand
2) Tools and Equipment
3) Trucks, Trailers, and Bobcats
4) Employee Advancement and Time Off
5) Personnel – Employees (Crew Members and Foreman; Office and Sales Staff)
6) Training
7) Safety
8) Communication
9) Workflow Processes (i.e., How to Operate More Efficiently)
10) Policies, Repercussions, and Enforcement

As an interesting side note, take another look at the list, and let me know which topic was surprisingly not mentioned specifically.

Compensation.

Beyond that noteworthy omission, with the field operations’ redirection now publicized, defined, and accepted, it was decided that the entire executive team and field management team would begin to meet on a weekly basis to clarify desired standards, determine current levels, and generate action items to elevate each specific topic at hand, to best-in-class status. Moreover, it was collaboratively stipulated that the field management team would hold the executives accountable to sincere involvement, thereby ensuring the executives would keep the meetings meaningful, energizing, and engaging.

Because nobody likes to be taken for granted, forgotten, or patronized.

After all, that’s what got us here in the first place.

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