Here he tells Vistage Ireland about some useful approaches to combating the recession, particularly for the SME sector.

Jeff Grout was, until 2000, UK Managing Director of Robert Half International, the largest specialist recruitment consultancy in the world.

He graduated from the London School of Economics, and joined Robert Half International as a recruiter at the age of 28, after an eclectic career as a van driver, passport office administrator, cleaner and town planner.  He remained with the company for almost 21 years and built up the UK operation from two offices and 12 staff into a business with a domestic turnover of £65 million, 19 offices and over 350 staff.

As a former business manager to ex-England coach Sir Clive Woodward from 2002 -2006 and former England rugby captain Martin Johnson, Jeff knows plenty about what makes teams tick.

Like in sport, SME teams are small and tightknit. But often team members see more of each other than their own family. How can managers stop familiarity breeding contempt?

“Firstly there needs to be clarity of purpose, roles and expectations,” said Jeff. “For example, what are the objectives and priorities and how can each team member contribute? How good is communication within the team? Are team members aware of how their behaviour impacts others?”

“You also need to ask ‘What does it feel like to work with you?’ and ‘What do colleagues need to keep doing, start doing and stop doing in order to improve team performance?’”

“Also you need to be aware of what motivates each team member? Does the team measure progress and celebrate success?”

This sounds like a great deal of observation is required by today’s managers; watching staff interact as a coach would on the training ground. But Jeff warns that “managers shouldn’t be ‘controlling’ interaction. Rather encouraging collaboration, communication and mutual support”.

“The manager needs to really know each member of their team, what motivates them and understand how they work together.”

But there’s more to management than observation. Strategies must be implemented – and that is the other half of management. So the biggest question of all is: how do successful leaders create and articulate that vision for their organisation – so that staff believe and follow?

“More than ever before staff are asking ‘what’s the plan?’. The leader needs to articulate a clear, authentic and compelling vision of the future.  What is the overall business objective? What are the key priorities? What’s in it for all stakeholders? What will be the ‘chatter’ from customers, competitors and colleagues in the future? What behaviours will be required? How will progress be measured?”

What Jeff is describing is communication. Both asking questions to learn about team member skills and questions that can inform strategy decisions. 

“To get buy-in this requires more than one piece of communication. Instead a variety of communication methods should be used with plenty of opportunities for 2-way communication and involvement. The message needs to be consistent, authentic and not too slick.”

A simple question was put to Jeff in the context of the Irish economy, which  has been characterised by a two-stream economy – a successful export-led sector made up of large foreign nationals and a struggling local sector of SMEs which is still breaking month-on-month records for insolvency. While cutting costs and building revenue is the obvious goal, how can an owner/manager of an SME achieve this at the moment?

Jeff said to “challenge and question all costs”, which definitely includes staff costs. This may mean reducing working hours. But he added that any pay cuts require agreement with staff. If redundancies are absolutely necessary,  managers should be very aware of the relative performance of team members and make redundancy decisions accordingly.

In terms of revenue building Jeff advises to get closer to clients and tap into their networks.
“In addition to finding new customers, sell additional products/services to existing customers. Also negotiate business alliances and joint ventures. And of course try to negotiate more advantageous payment terms.”

To find out more about Jeff Grout visit http://jeffgrout.com/

Roger Brownlie for Vistage Ireland

How do leaders really spend their time? Are they preoccupied with strategy? Are they focussed on the present or the future? How do they motivate their people and get ‘buy in’?

Jeff will identify the core skills and behaviour displayed by those leaders. He will examine how they deal with people – the steps they take to establish trust and understanding, the importance of communication and the approaches used to inspire top performance. Jeff will also discuss how leaders create and articulate a clear vision for their organisation and how they effectively lead change.

Jeff’s presentation style is straight-forward, accessible and rich with vivid anecdotes. The session is relevant to anyone who finds themselves thrown into a leadership role. It will also appeal to those who are allergic to management theory or frustrated by its apparent dissociation from real life.

The objectives of this workshop are to:

Provide insight into what leaders really do – Give the opportunity for you to reflect on your own leadership approach – Offer tools to add to you own leadership tool kit

And will examine:

-Differences between management and leadership
-Providing clear direction
- Successfully managing change
-Effective communication
- Knowing your people
-Letting go
- Coaching for performance
-Defining your leadership brand

To make sure you don’t miss put book now

Etain Doyle, Vistage Group Chair in Ireland is looking forward to Jeff Grout’s visit to talk to the members of her group and guests. Here is why you might press the registration button above and come along.

‘Vistage is all about enabling committed, experienced CEOs work smarter. They know that there are always other perspectives on their challenges, new angles to discover and skills to learn/refresh to succeed.

Set up by a businessman for businessmen and women, it brings to members the best of International practice and experience together with specific sessions on Irish issues. It provides a unique forum for discussion and review of today’s business issues with other experienced CEOs, and also provides a sounding board/coaching for them.

It is not easy managing a business in today’s tough environment. Vistage member businesses do better than they did before they joined and also better than the average.’

And yet, every CEO has to get up and lead his or her business every day, and find ways of dealing directly and through his/her staff with a myriad of issues, all of which are more complex and time-consuming today:-
- retaining existing customers and maintaining the relevance of service offerings and products……
- finding new customers and products, determining if a revamp of the website be cost-effective….
- dealing with suppliers seeking ever tighter credit terms and sourcing new ones……..
- finding ways of cutting costs and improving operations, maybe logistics, IT, financial management, CRM etc without damanging the business………..
- finding ways of using scarce working capital more effectively……….
- dealing with the banks and shortage of credit…….
- making the right decisions about employees, whether it is deciding to stay on course, cut numbers, reduce pay or taking a risk with new specialist hires….
- and maintain morale in the workforce so that the firm can operate to the best of its capability.

Leadership and management has never been so challenging, nor the stakes so high for businesses.  Whether managing a large organisation with many senior professionals or a smaller organisation with a limited staff, the opportunity that Vistage gives to CEOs to meet in a Vistage designed, confidential setting to thrash out these challenges and identify the opportunities with other experienced CEOs can make all the difference…….

Vistage was set up by an American CEO for CEOs over 50 years ago and it has honed its service to its 15,000 members over the years to provide relevant and reliable support, advice and expertise.  If you would like to know more contact me at 01 4968460/01 2916039.

Kyran Fitzgerald, a well known business journalist will provide monthly articles commenting on business subjects and the first ones are published here. You have the opportunity to tell us what subjects you would like covered, by emailing …… or to post your comment below the articles…

It is not easy to ask people to challenge and perhaps abandon established ways of working, traditional structures, or settled arrangements. In a very uncertain world, it is not easy to determine which of the massive market changes are transient and which are the ones to build on for the future.

Many chief executives feel a need to test their ideas  in such an environment.

However, given inevitable time constraints and the need to maintain the confidence of and support those around one, the process of engineering such a discussion can be anything but straightforward. 

Life less lonely at the top

Back in 1957, one Wisconsin based US businessman, Robert Nourse, stumbled on a solution to the problem of how best to put to the test business propositions in an atmosphere where confidences will be respected.  

Nourse’s ‘ Eureka moment’ consisted in the following deceptively simple idea:  the formation of peer learning circles of CEOs, where ideas can be tested in relaxed surroundings, where no hostages are surrendered to fortune.

A half century on, Nourse’s concept has taken root. His membership organisation, known as Vistage, has 15,000 members. In 2008 alone, 1,800 new members came on board. 

An Irish application :

According to Etain Doyle, Group Chairman for Vistage Ireland, Vistage has been operating in this country since shortly after the turn of the Millennium.

Etain runs two groups in the Republic. There are several more in operation in Northern Ireland.

The first  group which she took on in 2008 has membership restricted to Chief Executives. The Chairperson plays an important role in the selection of candidates.  It is important that CEOs are open to change and to participation in the group.  To discuss issues openly, a CEO will not wish to find themselves in the same group as someone with whom they already have a business connection whether as a rival, customer, or supplier.

As I recruit someone, I find out quite a bit about their business and I check to make sure that there are no conflicts of interest with any other person already in the group. Incumbents have priority.”

Meetings take place monthly on a regular basis. “What members find useful is the fact that their ideas can be threshed out within the group from a lot of perspectives. They may not necessarily take the advice of the others in the group, but even so, they can go ahead and make their decision with greater confidence, in the knowledge that it has been stress tested.”

Regular workshops

Workshops included in the meeting are led by specialist experts and take place six to eight times a year. Examples of topics covered include the following:

- Sales management in a challenging market environment.

- What CEOs from a non financial background need to understand about finance.

-Maintaining morale in recessionary times

The workshops are practical and focused. There is an opportunity to try out key techniques. This helps ensure that participants are in a better position to implement change on their return to their organisations.

Well known Irish people are brought in regularly as guest speakers. Recent visitors have included Professor John FitzGerald of the Economic & Social Research Institute, the insolvency practitioner, Tom Murray, and HR specialist, Ann O Callaghan.

CEOs also have monthly one to one sessions with the group Chairman. According to Etain, “the one to one sessions are an opportunity for a CEO to keep track of what they are doing with the aim of ensuring that they are working ON their business as opposed to merely working IN their business.”   

“The idea is that people should step back and look at what is really important.”

“The only person who can do the CEO’s job is the CEO. If the CEO is buried in tasks, he or she will lose sense of direction.”

At present, all the current members in the Irish Group are drawn from the private sector. However, this has not always been the case. “There have been members from the commercial end of the public sector; likewise members from not for profit organisations.  What is important is that members are focussed on improving their business and sharing their experience with others.”

Says Etain: “People are pretty frank with each other. There is no value to be had out of people politely listening to each other, or clapping each other.”

Membership is very flexible with quarterly renewals, rather than annual contracts.

Recent innovations : 

Etain is developing a second group geared to the needs of smaller enterprises which have passed beyond the start up stage.

Executives below CEO level in larger organisations are also participating in this group.

Since taking over as Chairperson in January 2008, Etain has dealt with a membership group drawn from among large retailers, suppliers of fast moving goods, large software developers, a wide range of distributors, bankers, lawyers, and hotel management entities among others

“I would like to see more Vistage groups emerge. But what really matters is that each current member is increasing his or her effectiveness, and is finding that their life is being enhanced by virtue of being able to work in a smarter fashion.”

“The temptation for a CEO is to go on doing the bits of the job that they are good at. People, under stress, tend to retreat into their comfort zone. Vistage helps, in ensuring that members concentrate on the things they need to concentrate on to ensure their businesses survive and thrive..

Etain Doyle: CV.

1997 – 2004: Head of the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation, subsequently Comreg.

In this capacity, Etain was Ireland’s first sectoral regulator, responsible for putting in place the regulatory framework driving liberalisation for a sector which was experiencing rapid technological change.

In the early 1990s, Etain worked in Poland, and then in Russia, managing the inspection service for the EU bilateral aid programme at a time when these countries were emerging from Communist rule.

Etain is a qualified accountant (FCCA) and a UCD graduate.