Black In Business

I have been tagged. The way this works, I have to disclose 5 facts about myself that few people know and tag 5 others. The 4 folks that have tagged me are big time bloggers and I am humbled by their acknowledgments.

Blogging for Business by Ted Demopoulos- http://bloggingforbusinessbook.com/

Shawn Hessinger- www.bootstrapme.com

www.douglaskarr.com - Influence and Automation

Media Lizzy- Sex, Lies and Politics- http://insidedcandredcarpets.blogspot.com/

Check these guys out and you will be impressed and will learn something.

On my facts I will try to be deep, for me that is.

1)

Proudest moment in my life. The first time I held my oldest son, Darius James Walton, soon to be 24 years old. Darius loves to write, but he is not blogging yet!

2)

My first wife died of breast cancer when I was 31. I had a big house on a golf course, a new baby, was in a leadership role and a great life. There are many things you can do to protect your family, but when a loved one is sick you are helpless. God controls all, as hurt as I was, I discovered what was and is most important in life. It was and is not many of the things I take pride in.

3)

My father a tough man, former boxing champ, underground miner and never took asprin, was screaming out in pain from bone cancer. I called my older brother and sister for advice, but the decision was mine to pull the plug and do what ever you have to, but get him out of pain. Morphine was brought in and my dad was out of pain. He spent his last 12 hours sleeping peacefully, a very handsome man, he looked at peace 84 years of life came to an end.

4)

Ok not so deep. I played on a football team that did not lose a game for 3 years and won 2 titles. I benched 330 lbs at 50 years old 3 times. My favorite teams, New York Knicks, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears and New York Yankees.

5)

My son with my current wife is Autistic. Talib is 18 and my wife has done a remarkable job as his case worker. She had done a good job with me, I must admit I don’t always listen well! I love her dearly and have to show it better. Our daughter Salihah was a model for Ebony Fashion Fair and has appeared in national magazines.

My turn to tag

USA: G Lilly Jr- Mo Bettah Marketing- www.mobettahmarketing.com/

India: Divya_Uttam- Blogging for Fame- http://blogandpingturtorial.blogspot.com/

South Africa: Kamesh Write- www.kameelahwrites.blogs

Britain: David Mcqueen- www.davidmcqueen.blogspot

France: Osamny- Oh My Bloogness- http://osmany.hautefort.com

Brazil: Rvincoletto- A Geek Family- http://rvincoletto.multiply.com/

Houston: Jaime Parks- Share Needles- www.shareneedles.com

France: Cath- www.planetargonautes.eu

West Africa: beninwangi- http://africareadyforbusiness.blogspot.com

I hope they bare their souls!

December 21st has arrived and we are on our way to paradise. I booked this trip 6 months ago as a family trip to celebrate our 18 year old’s birthday. We chose Antigua at Talib’s request. Our precious baby is now 18 years old, as of December 24th.

The trip was a pain, 5 hours to San Juan, then 2 hours to Antigua. We left home at 6:30am by limo for Ohare, the world’s busiest airport. Our flight was at 9:30am. I use to fly often and my family and I have taken several trips together. However, the past 2 years we have mostly driven to where we have wanted to travel. Saying all that to say this, I was not prepared for the bedlam of the airport. We arrived at 7:20am for a 9:20am flight. The early take off, last minute packing, running errands and cleaning house meant very little sleep.

Was it worth it yes!!! Antigua is a beautiful, quiet island filled with nice people. We stayed in a 2 bedroom Villa with 2 bathrooms. We have done the beach winter holiday before, but it is still weird to hear “happy Christmas,” with palm trees and weather in the 80s. We had no phone, T.V., air condition, cell phone service and we shared one computer with the entire resort. We had each other and that was pretty cool.

The flight back was long, but the worst part again was the pre boarding. Thank god I only fly for vactions now.

In two previous post we discussed business action plans and the role of managing the process. All business people like to start a new year fresh and ready. Now that the plan of attack is in place, we have another consideration. As you know if you continue to do business the same way, you will get the same results. One way to consider opportunities for improvement is to review a development plan with your manager. You both should prepare and discuss the following. This is better done on a one on one basis.

-Discussion Items_

Area’s of conflict, if you are the manager you will want to provide your employee an opportunity to clear the air of any issues that may be bugging your employee. It is critical for you to listen and not interrupt. Hopefully if there are issues, common ground can be found. The manager’s ability to allow their team a true open door policy with no fear of repercussion, is a sign of considering leadership. I have found as a leader there are times when I was wrong and having employees comfortable enough to tell me, made me more successful. Even more important my teams embraced me because I realized on great teams coaching can be a two way street. You do not want to start the year without having your team on the same page. If they are upset because they feel you are unfair to them and it is not discussed with agreed common ground, the strategy will not matter. As a manager you should also review any issues you have. Late expense reports, customer complaints, etc. Take enough time so you both feel it has been discussed and hopefully settled. At the end of the day the manager is the final shot caller and at some point you have to move on.

Other Topics:

Accomplishments

Disappointments

Critical Factors

Things I will start doing

Things I will stop doing

Things I will continue doing

Personal Strengths

Personal Weaknesses

It is suggested to pick 1 or 2 items of weakness, to plan a development strategy for improvement. The manager should outline the plan and time frames with employee’s agreement. Even if the employee has 10 areas of weakness just pick a couple to work on that you both feel can be improved.

I suggest this process be done in a quarterly basis. This is a commitment of time and energy. If done right your team will feel they are well lead and appreciate the investment in them.

Everything you do as a leader or team member needs to be with the purpose of being the best team in the business. “Shoot for the moon and even if you missed you will be with the stars.” Anything can be accomplished, but it takes effort and preparation.

 How do you help a team win. We did this by establishing a higher level of expecations and accountability.Often times when sales are slow or there is a dept. problem, action  and demand is to fire someone. Often times it is the front line worker that is vulnerable to being fired. Personality I look at management and support first.

How is our training? Are our people motivated? Do they know what is expected? Are our managers in touch, are they approachable. can they lead, coach, excite, develop, inspire greatness?As you can see, performance issues can be complicated. All the while, top management will want to see something different. They may want some heads to roll.

My outline for the action plans were as follows:

Review performance, in sales this is actual vs goal % and ranking, along with total sales and margins. Having the meeting in December, should provide a good idea for how the year will close.

Establish a run rate or expected sales verus last year actuals along with any worthy upside. Do a gap review, the gaps between the run rate and the goals for the next year. On a losing team some rare members may be at their goal based on their run rate so higher goals are in order .

Break down how the goals need to be achieved.

A good format is; Objective- tactics- time frame- comments. For sales people this form should be used for all prospects and the tactics should be the steps of the sale needed  in order to do business. This is also where a good leader and coach gives direction to ensure a good strategy is in place. The time frame for each step should include excat dates as targets for completion. Your comments are aspects that need to be known and understood,ie, who the decision makers are, competition, budgets etc

Another page to include in the action plans are any key events that might lead to upside sales or any pending business concerns that need to be communicated.

Group dynamics are key to building a sense of team and my recommendation is for the entire group present  for and to each other.

At the end of the day, the sales mgr can total up the anticapated sales for the year and then communicate how they will help the coroporation reach the utimate goal of building more shareholder value. It is futher suggested some type of bonding activity take place. Beer and pizza seem to work well in setting the environment foe togetherness. Having a team theme or nick name will help build sprit. We had a year where we wore wild ties or scraves and the men grew beards. We were rebels with a cause!

For 07, you can build a stair way to heaven, with each stair matching an important step or goal to lead to heaven which would be the utlimate.

In summary; establish a mission and businessplan for every asignment, have measurable actions steps with timeframes indicated,meet and review as a group, develope a theme or team name, end the meeting with a team building activity, and then make it happen. My last post on this topic will be  how to manage this process to a turn around year. I perfer to lead the process because it will take more leadership than management, if you have the right team. If you don’t have the right team this process will provide objective information in which you can manage your  decision making. Your decision making will be how to make the team better, or does the team need changes.

You have to read this link below. It should be part of a foundation for us to build more success in the black community.

http://www.finalcall.com/perspectives/being_black06-18-2002.htm

Understanding the dynamics of our lack of self esteme and building more pride in our selves will lead to more success for all blacks. We must overcome now, We shall overcome was in the 60’s. I urged the readers to comment on the importance of ethnic groups trying to help and support each other.