Workshop on

The Seven Attributes of Excellent Management

 

 Learning Method: Instructor-led Classroom Learning, Web-based, and POD-Casting Coming Soon.

 

Abstract:

 

This workshop is based on the book Geronimo Stone, His Music, His Love, and the Mobile of Excellent Management. Craig A. Stevens, The author of the Geronimo Stone Series of books and the developer of the linked management models to excellence in organizational change presents this fast moving presentation. Enjoy while Craig introduces you to the book Geronimo Stone, the Mobile of Excellent Management, and the Seven Attributes that will help make you and your people more successful.

 

 

 

See www.geronimostone.com for reviews.

 

Duration: 1/2 Day for an Introduction up to Five Days for All the Tricks

 

Overview:

 

In this fun and fast passed course, current and/or future managers and leaders will learn what excellence looks like.  They will learn how to develop an effective organizational environment and management style.  Our goal is to maximize our competitive advantage for the 21st century.

 

Story:

 

Imagine you inherit your family’s legendary music company but as soon as you take control, everything is threatened by hostile takeover.  You only have two choices, give up and sell now, or fight.  Either way there are no guarantees.  If you sell, your family is set for life and you may even salvage a piece of your history.  Fight for the legacy, and you will likely lose everything including your professional reputation.  Sell and you may lose the respect of those you love most.  The only person who can help you has died, but he left you with a detailed plan.

 

In this searing drama, learn the seven attributes of “The Mobile of Excellent Management.”  This, the 1st story in the Geronimo Stone Series, takes place at an independent record label in Nashville, Tennessee.  The once-prosperous company is in chaos when its patriarch, Robert “Geronimo” Stone becomes ill and dies.  His family survives the profound personal loss only to face a hostile business war.  They encounter so many challenges, so quickly; that it never occurs to them that there may have been something peculiar about Geronimo’s death.

 

The family and remaining junior employees struggle against the compounding challenges of their deteriorating business.  Together, they attempt to stabilize their downward spiraling Blues record label, once the envy of the entire music industry.  They face major organizational change and restructuring, a hostile takeover attempt, subversive senior employees, and more. 

 

See for yourself how they handle this impossible situation with the help of an unusual “mobile” and insightful messages left by Geronimo.  Hold on as you race headlong from tragedy to threat, to surprise solution, and glorious celebration.  All the while, learn to handle the most perplexing business problems of the 21st Century (www.geronimostone.com).

 

At Course Completion:

 

After completing this course, students will know how to: - Use balance and flexibility as a competitive tool.  Define the seven attributes that are important to master management excellence.  Build a foundation and plan for self and organizational improvement.

 

Suggested Audience:  Current and Future Leaders.

Outline:                    

  

Introduction: Understanding the Mobile of Excellent Management

  • Mastering Balance and the Systems Approach

  • Roadmap to Excellence

 

Attribute 1, Building Effective Leaders

  • What Does Good Look Like?

  • Understanding the Steps to Empowerments

  • Understanding the Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

  • Understanding Situational Leadership and Other Historical Concepts

  • Where Are We and How Do We Apply Theory to Practice?

 

Attribute 2, Building an Effective Organizational Culture

  • Defining The Organizational Cable of Culture

  • What Does Good Look Like?

  • Examples of Good and Bad

  • Where Are We and How Do We Apply Theory to Practice?

 

Attribute 3, Effective Customer Focus

  • Defining Effective Customer Focus

  • What Does Good Look Like?

  • Examples of Good and Bad

  • Where Are We and How Do We Apply Theory to Practice?

 

Attribute 4: Team Building and Helping People Work Together

  • The Elements of Team Building

  • Conflict Management

  • Productivity Management

  • Motivation and Group Dynamics

  • Where Are We and How Do We Apply Theory to Practice?

 

Attribute 5: Problem Solving and Skills Development

  • The Dynamics of Removing Obstacles and Barriers

  • Understanding Core Competencies

  • Building the Teams Tool Box

  • Intro to 10 Required Tools

 

Attribute 6: Continuous Improvement and Change Management

  • Understanding Continuous Improvement and Change Management

  • The Three Phases of Change Management

  • Force Field Analysis

 

Attribute 7: Seven Steps to Measuring Performance

  • Introduction to the Seven Steps of Measuring Organizational Performance

  • The Laws of Measuring Performance

  • Introduction to Individual Performance

 

Bottom Line of the Business Lesson:

 

The Attributes of the Mobile of Excellent Management represent the steps to success.

 

Step 1:  Leaders have to lead. Without “Leadership,” nothing else happens. “Leadership” is more than a couple of people at the top. It is everyone’s job. Everyone has to help make things happen. You have to empower everyone to make decisions, at the lowest possible levels to make everything happen faster. However, someone at the top has to paint the vision.

 

Step 2:  Next is “Culture.” Organizational culture is the string or cable that holds it all together. Unless the company’s culture buys into what you are trying to accomplish, your vision will not happen. It simply will never happen. If you do not work on the culture, you may as well cut the string on the mobile. Like the mobile, your organization will fall apart. Systems are important, but culture can cause the perfect system to fail. The organizational culture has to support our paradigm of employee empowerment. Everyone has to buy in. To an employee, his or her direct supervisor represents the company’s entire culture.” The company should be a great place to work for those who buy into the culture…but for those who do not, it will be better to let them go.

 

Step 3:  After “Culture,” comes the bar of “Customer focus.” The customers must be delighted, both internally and externally. Do not get suckered into the debate of who pays and who does not. The paying customers are the reason we all have jobs; everyone had better have them in mind when they do their jobs. Everyone should also think about the next person in the process chain when performing his or her duties, for eventually that chain ends with the paying customer.

 

At the bottom of the mobile hangs the other four attributes to balance, “Excellent Teams,” “Problem Solving,” “Continuous Improvement,” and “Performance Measurement.” Can you imagine trying to build teams without skills in problem solving or without leadership…or…How about starting a continuous improvement programs without performance measures? It would never work.

 

Step 4:  So next on the mobile is the dangling object that represents “Teamwork.” We have long passed the day when one person can perform all the duties required for success. It takes a number of people with different focuses to make even the simplest product a success. Build teams that focus on the customer.

 

Step 5:  “Teams” require skills to be successful. That is—skills in doing their jobs, skills in working together, and skills to make decisions, and solve problems. “Problem Solving” is one of the three objects hanging below the bar of “Customer Focus,” balancing “Teamwork,” on the mobile of Excellent Management.

 

Step 6:  Next, “Change and Continuous improvement,” the issues related to competitive longevity. The teams must continuously work to make your company the best and become better at project management. You can never be the best, unless, you continue to improve the processes and systems required to serve the customer. The organization’s culture must understand how important this is. Everyone must lead and the senior leaders must paint the vision and demonstrate its importance.

 

Step 7:  A company cannot know whether they are getting better or worse unless they measure their performance (i.e., “Performance Measures”).

 

Conclusion:

 

All these attributes must remain in balance; they are all important. You cannot remove any one of them without shortening the life of the company or the effectiveness of the projects. Just like on the mobile, remove any one piece, and it is longer a piece of art. In a company or project, remove any one and you no longer have Excellent Management. Remove Excellent Management, and you cannot remain competitive. Stop being competitive, and one day, you will no longer be a company.

 

The story gently pulls people into a learning frame of mind and fits the business lessons into the new media of the 21 Century.

 

 Contact Craig A. Stevens for Booking Information at CraigAStevens@westbrookstevens.com

(615) 834-8838