LOOKING FORWARD

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

A very successful business owner from Maryland called me the other day to talk about his field operation. His field team is exemplary. He has highly-tenured and well-trained Account Managers, Field Supervisors, and Foremen. Field execution is efficient, standardized, and closely monitored. The field culture is collaborative, cohesive, and respectful. Like I said, “very successful.”

Don’t be envious.

You could have what he has, if you really wanted to have it.

A major turning point for the Maryland owner was a conversation he and I had two years ago, during which time I recommended that he shift his view of his Account Managers from “operators” to “businessmen.” In specific, it was suggested that his monthly Field Operations meetings be reframed from discussing plants, turf, and sundry horticulture issues to having each Account Manager make a 15-30-minute presentation to attendees, reviewing monthly goals, business metrics, and best practices that contributed added value to their individual portfolios, the Field Operations Department, and the overall company.

The Account Managers were told they would be solely responsible for generating all monthly reports from the company IT system, tracking year-to-date progress, and compiling PowerPoint presentations, handouts, or discussion exercises as part of their session time. After the predictable growing pains evident in the first several meetings, the Account Managers soon became professionally proud and constructively competitive, with notable depth and sophistication on myriad business acumen components (e.g., gross margin, hourly average wage, revenue per employee, materials costs, overtime, and daily yard departure/ arrival). The business owner quickly became overjoyed at their progress, presence, and performance.

Now, to our recent conversation. As a capitalist, I told the Maryland business owner that we were at a providential time, mandating us to look forward and build upon that foundation, to combat complacency and redefine the next level of the company’s Account Manager Development Plan in order to achieve incremental employee engagement, synergistic integration, and noteworthy company value through better business planning.

Not replacing, but building upon the Account Managers’ ensconced business acumen, I suggested the business owner direct them to spend less time summarizing their historical monthly quantitative standing, with more time devoted to their portfolio business plans for the next 30 days and 90 days. With one fell swoop, the Account Managers were challenged to move from being bookkeepers to strategic planners.

With the business goals still firmly established, the Account Managers had to present a 30-day plan and a 90-day plan to their peers, outlining the procedural steps, key initiatives, and resource allocations they believed would ensure sustained portfolio success. And they had to do this at each meeting; reviewing their original plans, critically analyzing the Start-Stop-Keep items for each quadrant in the Balanced Scorecard, and making apt modifications to their original business plans in a forward-thinking fashion.

Instead of gloating about empirical indices from the previous month, the Account Managers now had to creatively identify, forecast, and leverage the key drivers of those metrics as predictive illustrations of how they would contribute to future performance. Notable drivers like: high-quality staffing, better on-the-job training, improved Foremen communication, closer vendor contact, being a better coach, partnering better with Shop, Human Resources, and office personnel, precise timekeeping, more frequent goal-oriented meetings with marketing, sales, and IT staff, improved time management and employee accountability, more accurate enhancements estimates, weekly one-on-one meetings with Field Supervisors, detailed tracking of job costs and job quality, and of course, having more direct visibility with their customers.

Start looking forward.

Don’t be envious.

You could have what he has, if you really want to have it.

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