Merry Christmas

This is the season when our family and many, many others celebrate the greatest gift of all, the Christ child. We are blessed in so many ways.











To our friends, we wish you a season of peace, joy and love. May you share your gifts with others so that we all benefit and are enriched.

We look forward to the next year with great optimism and hope that you will be part of our business family.

Have a wonderful holiday.




John

John Maver
President
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

“How’s that working for you”

By John Maver

“How’s that working for you” is often asked by Dr Phil to his guests. While in most cases, it is meant to lead the reinforcement that their behavior is incorrect, it also is a way of actually getting feedback.

Writing these posts as a one way communication is very much like talking to oneself. That can be okay unless you find yourself say “Huh?” a lot.

The objective is to share relevant information in a manner that is helpful to the readers. I can only tell that if I hear from you.

So I am asking two things.

First, comment on the posts and let me know your thoughts. Go back to the earlier ones and check out those ideas too. I welcome your feedback and any ideas or additions that you have. That could lead to new posts that might be helpful to you as well as others. I’ll write back to you. This means that you should check back often to see the new posts and the new ideas. You never know which one will be THE ONE that can explode your business forward.

Second, pass on this site to others so that they too can benefit from the ideas. I have found during my years in business that while the specific execution of an idea may not be transferable, the basis of the idea generally is and it can be of great benefit to others. It provides fresh and creative thinking to different industries. The abundance mentality really works.

Thanks for reading and let me ask…

“How’s this working for you?”

John Maver
President
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

Summary - CEO Tips I wish I’d had when I started.

By John Maver
Part of a presentation to the Renaisance Forum for CEOs

CEO Tips I wish I’d had when I started. As I said at the beginning, I learned from first hand experience supplemented by a lot of reading. I had some great role models in my life and they were helpful too. Most taught me what to do. Some taught me what not to do so you can learn from everybody. I’ll bet that you had some of both in your career too.

There are many other tips that can be added in subsequent wrings but these are the most important in my experience.
1 What’s my job? What am I responsible for?
2 It’s the people. It’s all about the people.
3 The roadmap to your vision.
4 Who are you? What is the brand YOU?
5 “What’s in it for me” – Your Customer
6 Stick with what you are good at.
7 Do it. Just do it!

I’d offer you one more tip. It comes from consulting with the many clients I have been fortunate to assist.

Invest in an expert to accelerate your progress. If you don’t have the right one(s) in your company hire a consultant. The ROI is substantial.

“Recognize the skills and traits you don’t possess and hire people who have them.”
Howard Schultz – Starbucks

Why do I recommend this? It would be easy to say that since I am a business acceleration management consultant and business advisor, it is self serving. Yes, in a way it is. But it is more than that. Your responsibility as a CEO is to lead. To set the direction and to incorporate the learning such as that above into your operations. One of the tips is to stick to what you are good at. For those areas that are not your core competency, get the right person to help. That may or may not be me. So it is really self serving FOR YOU!!

Make the investment to secure a good business advisor. Do it today. Let me know if we can help.

Remember, there is no rewind button on business or life.

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 8 Do it. Just do it!!!!

By John Maver
Part of a presentation given at the Renaisance Forum for CEOs

This is a great Nike slogan that reached a lot of people and established Nike’s reputation in athletic wear. But it is much more than that. It is a call to action. To actually employ the employees and the leadership teams in the culture that has been created. To capitalize on the capital you have invested and the brands created. To be meaningful to your customers, to fill their needs and to do it through your significant strengths. You just have to do it. A good plan in the market has a far better chance of successful impact than a great plan still being developed

“The thing that keeps me awake in this business is the speed at which you have to move.”
Robert Nardelli CEO Home Depot

Many CEO’s get to the top based on their success at making decisions. However, once at the top there is the realization that the decisions are different. At all other levels in the company on important decisions all you could say is no to the project. If you agreed with the idea or recommended project, it went up the line to the next level of authority for their concurrence. Now, at the CEO level, you're it. You make that “Yes” decision. The final decision is yours!

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Wayne Gretzsky

But there can be a reluctance to actually make that decision. It can be seen in some of the following actions:
* Paralysis by analysis.
* Do more research.
* Send it to a committee for further study.

All of these are delays in the decision making process and all cause the company’s progress to slow or stall. Often times they come under the umbrella thought of “We will do this when things settle down.” Guess what?? Things never settle down. So get on with it and start driving your business forward.

“Get out of your own way … Your success depends on it.”
Bill Gates Microsoft

How are you doing?

Are you poised for action or are you treading water at the moment?

What is keeping you from driving ahead?

Think about getting some professional consulting help to be a catalyst for you and your team.

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 7 “Stick with what you are good at.”

By John Maver
Presented at the Renaissance Forum for CEOs

“Core Competency is an area of specialized expertise that is the result of harmonizing complex streams of technology and work activity.” CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel

That definition by the initiators of this concept is a little tough for me so let me offer this thought. “Stick with what you are good at.” A core competency is something that a firm can do well, provides customer benefits, is hard for competitors to imitate and can be leveraged widely to many products and markets. Clearly these provide a competitive advantage…if you stick to them and use them. Funny, how one has to add that last line in there because so many companies stray and engage in what is known as strategic creep. The result is that they end up far a field from their real core competencies and they pay the price.

Your strategic plan should identify your core competencies and how to use them most effectively. Most fall into three overall categories of strategic focus. They are low price, technological advantage and customer service. Within each of those are many more specific core competencies that enable the company to deliver on that particular strategic focus.

"Modern business theory suggests that most activities that are not part of a company’s core competency should be outsourced.” Alex Meinhoff

Here is an example from the sports world of what can happen when you don’t do this and I know that all of you have seen similar examples.

Garo Yepremian, Miami Dolphins field goal kicker, despite all of his success, is remembered by many people for an embarrassing incident in Super Bowel VII. Yepremian was sent in to kick a field goal. The field goal attempt was blocked and Yepremian managed to get to the ball. He picked it up. Rather than just fall on it he attempted to throw a pass. The ball slipped from his hands and went into the arms of Redskins cornerback Mike Bass, who returned it for a touchdown. You may recall that this was the Dolphin’s undefeated season. Yepremian’s gaff made the score 14-7 Dolphins. They hung on to win but think what could have happened.

“What it will come down to…is that we will try to do what we do best. We will go with our strengths.”
Vince Lombardi (They won 5 NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls)

Honda is known for their expertise in engines and they have expanded that core competency from lawn mowers, to outboard motors to motor cycles and to automobiles. Volvo is known for its safety core competency. Both are sticking to what they are good at.

In the 1990s, Sears Roebuck divested itself of Allstate Insurance, Dean Witter, and its real estate brokerage activities to focus on its core competency, which was retailing general merchandise.

Mercedes is divesting Chrysler and Ford is selling off Jaguar and its other luxury car businesses.

Wendy’s divested Tim Horton’s doughnuts.

Chainsaw Al Dunlop divested almost everything in his companies but that’s another story.

“Baseball was okay but let’s get back to the court with the Bulls.”
Michael Jordon

What are your personal core competencies?

What are the core competencies of your company?

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 6 “What’s in it for me” – Your Customer

By John Maver
Presented at the Renaissance Forum for CEOs

"What's in it for me." This isn’t just a song by Faith Hill. It is a way of life for your customers. They don’t care about you and your business issues. They are interested in what makes their life better. How can you or your product help them? Yes they want a great price and they want value but most of all they want that emotional benefit that says "This fills MY needs." It isn’t always the best product from a logical standpoint. The emotion is also important and needed. Think about it.

“People don’t want a quarter inch drill. They want a quarter inch hole.”
Theodore Levitt

Value is what the consumer says it is. This is where a brand has to walk the talk.

"It's the EXPERIENCE, stupid!" as James Carvel might have said

Customer satisfaction = Your performance / Customer Expectations

What a great simple equation of how to determine customer satisfaction. Are you under or over delivering against their expectations? Better be over delivering.

Research shows that people want:
To have you really know what they want and need
To be treated with respect and to be listened to
Not be bounced around and treated like dummies
Not be served by people who don’t know their stuff
To have products that fill those needs

Find out what customers want from you and know that what you are providing matches it. Do the research and don’t guess. Deliver what you say you will. Far too many businesses focus on ways to keep customers, only to lose sight of the fact that their product or service simply isn't what it should be. Stop talking about features and start talking about benefits. The benefits to the customer. The benefits make a customer, YOUR customer. Make yourself more valuable to your customers, become a part of their world. Give them the five star treatment and they will give you five star loyalty.

“Call it "loyalty" or "customer intimacy". Come hell or high water, get close to that customer, listen to that customer, and love up that customer for all you're worth”.
Tom Peters

How do you measure your customers’ loyalty and what are you doing to drive it ahead?

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 5 Who are you? What is the brand YOU?

By John Maver

Part of a presentation given to the Renaissance Forum for CEOs

As the old wise marketing guru said “ Branding is the essence of successful marketing.” Brand equity is a precious gem. While not particularly rare it can be very valuable. So how do you tap into this treasure?

Consumers and customers don’t buy products or companies they buy brands. They form relationships with brands. The performance of your company or product, what it does and how it does it, is the core identity for the brand. The brand also has a distinctive personality and character that makes an emotional and trust based connection with the customer and distinguishes it from competitive brands.

“What Is a Customer Relationship? It is an on going conversation in which the customer never thinks of you without thinking of the two of you.”
Tom Peters

What does Peters mean when he says the customer thinks of the two of you? I believe that he means that you have established such a positive relationship with that customer that they consider you to be instrumental in their business success. Therefore you are bonded and the equity you have established is very strong.

Brand equity can provide strategic advantages to your company in many ways
Indicator of quality. (Coke vs. cola.)
Command a price premium. (Intel vs. AMD)
Simplify the decision process for low-cost products. (Kleenex vs. facial tissue)
Give comfort by reducing the perceived risk. (Beringer vs. Two Buck Chuck)
Maintain higher awareness and included in most consumers’ consideration set. (Microsoft, Ipod)
Strong defense against competition.

Brand names are company assets that must be invested in, protected and nurtured to maximize their long-term value to your company. Brands have many of the same implications as capital assets (like equipment and plant purchases) on a company's bottom line, including the ability to be bought and sold and the ability to provide strategic advantages.

"What you ARE shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Your brand is not what you say you are, but what your customer thinks you are."
Steve Yastro

When people think of your company what image comes to mind?

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 4 Family – It’s all about the People

By John Maver

This wasn’t part of the presentation to the Renaissance Forum for CEOs but the idea is significant for you.

It follows the thoughts about the importance of people. Some people are very important and that group is family. It is critical that CEOs get a balance in life so that they enjoy and lead their families as well as their companies. How easy it is to get caught up in the work day and neglect your real responsibilities. Don’t do it. We all can make excuses that our attention is needed every moment on the business. Don’t be fooled.

I am including this note here because I just had a new grandson today. His name is John Arnold Heard and he is named after both of his grandfathers. I’ll be spending a lot of time with him.

His sister Ella Blue Heard is 2 ½ and I spend a lot of time with her as well.

My other 4 grandchildren live in the Boston or the Toronto area and I don’t see them as much as I would like and that kills me. From left to right, they are Zoe Diana Maver, Hannah Victoria Maver, Ryan Jack Clemente and Andrew Austin Maver. I need to get better at finding creative longer distance ways of contact.

My point in this other than bragging about these six fantastic kids is to say, please don’t cheat yourself. There is no rewind button on life so don’t miss out on the most important people in your life.

Give your family a hug today.

John

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 3 Show me the roadmap to your vision.

By John Maver
Part 4 of a presentation given to Renaissance Forum CEOs

Strategy is about figuring out what is really important and what you can do to influence it. Businesses are a complex network of issues but there are only a few things that really make the difference in the marketplace. I have found that the majority of CEO’s with whom I speak may have a plan but most don’t have it written down. My findings are supported by the Association for Strategic Planning with 63% of companies not having a strategic plan at all. Most have simple short term plans but not much more than a half year. Your plan has to be written in order to really take hold and bring your organization in support. It must cause you to identify the key targets and the plans that will deliver them. It will harness your scarce resources and dictate how to use them most effectively. It aligns the work of your employees. It keeps you on track!

“When I am on that speedway, you had better believe that my team and I are following a written plan that we have developed for success. I am going far too fast to just wing it.” Dale Earnhardt

There are many reasons given for not taking the time to make the investment in developing a strategic plan. Most have to do with time and other priorities. Some companies foolishly believe that their industry is different. It is changing too fast for a plan to be meaningful. Not so! Believe me this is the most productive and beneficial activity you can do for your company and yourself by a long shot. You need a written plan in a format that is useable.

“You shouldn’t expect to walk into a new leadership job with an established strategic plan. Rather you should walk in prepared to lead a strategic process.” Dave Peterschmidt – CEO of Securify and previously Sybase

The Maver Management Group uses a simple one page format that clearly articulates our client's strategic plan, including the tactics that will be executed to bring the plan to life and the measures to keep the company on track. It enables the company to harness their scarce resources and deliver the goals. There are many forms for strategic planning. Find one that works for you and use it!

What is your plan?

Is it clear, concise understandable and actionable? Is it a living document that can be modified as you reach milestones or circumstances change?

Do you have a written long term plan? If not, when?

Call us if we can help you develop one.

Check back tomorrow for part 5 of the presentation.

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 2 It’s the people. It’s the people. It’s all about the people.

By John Maver
Part 3 of a presentation given to Renaissance Forum CEOs

Work gets done through people. They create the products, the processes and the revenue. They manage the customers, they manage the resources and they activate the strategies and plans. They bring the vision alive and actualize it. They should be your most valuable resource.

“A leader is judged in terms of what others do to obtain the results he is placed there to get.” Vince Lombardi

Historically, most companies hired good people, trained them and kept them for many years. Loyalty went both ways. They followed a philosophy like these ones at Procter & Gamble and GE.

“I know that the single biggest contribution I will make to this company is helping the next generation of leaders become the best that they can be.” “My job is to unleash the creativity, initiative, leadership, and productivity of P&G people. They are the leaders who’ve delivered the results.” AG Lafely, Procter &Gamble CEO

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is about growing others.” Jack Welch Ex CEO of GE

“If you leave us our money, our buildings and our brands but take away our people, the company will fail. But if you take away our money, our buildings and our brands but leave us our people, we can rebuild the whole thing in less than a decade.” Procter & Gamble CEO Richard R Dupree 1947

That philosophy is no longer the case for many companies. Meaningful development plans no longer exist, particularly for the CEO. That means you need a plan that recruits the right person for the job and moves them out quickly when they are no longer right. Half a body is worse than no body at all. It means far more work to do anything through someone who isn’t in tune and it lulls you into a false set of security since you don’t have a ready hole to fill. Plus you are paying for the full measure while only getting part. Training and development takes time and money. The “hire, admire and fire” is also quite expensive when all the costs are added in, including the loss of the intellectual capital that goes out the door each time. Be careful in your strategic selection.

“Recognize the skills and traits you don’t possess and hire people who have them.” Howard Schultz – Starbucks

In either philosophy, a critical action is selecting “A” players and having them in key positions. An “A” player is someone who consistently excels and goes beyond expectations, reinventing and improving new situations. They take initiative, and that they exhibit purposeful action. No organization can have all “A” players, but “A” players have to be in the key positions for the organization to be successful. The responsibility of the CEO is to understand which positions within the company are key positions and to insure that the business has “A” players in all key positions in the company. Then have fully functioning “B” players in the other roles to support them. Move out the “C” players to other companies and opportunities where their talents will allow them to become “A” or “B” players there.

“Life with top players is heaven! Life without top players is not life at all. It is hell!” All managers of non playoff teams

What are your people plans?

How are you nourishing them so that they deliver above average results?

Check back tomorrow for the next tip. In the meantime, answer the questions so that you can put some of these tips to use to accelerate your business.

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO Tip 1 What’s my job? What am I responsible for?

By John Maver

Part 2 of a presentation given to Renaissance Forum CEOs

While ultimately it can be said that the CEO is responsible for everything, there are several key leadership responsibilities that fit for CEOs of companies of all sizes. You are going to find, if you haven’t found already, that you like me are being pulled into many, many activities and issues that really can be handled by someone else. Be vigilant, because each will erode your time on the really important areas that only you as CEO can handle.

A Setting strategy and vision.
The CEO is the owner of the vision and the strategies on how to make that vision a reality. No one else in your company can play this role. The senior management team can help develop strategy. The Board and investors can approve a business plan but the CEO ultimately sets the direction.

Vision is your concept of the future of your business, how you perceive and experience the future of your company right now, in the present. A powerfully held and shared vision energizes and inspires people. Vision is the vital catalyst that multiplies the efforts people put into their work, and intensifies and enlarges the effect of those efforts. Getting big is all about how one thinks. It is just as easy to have a big dream as it is to have a small dream.

"Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil."
James Allen

“Dream Big and Kick Ass.”
Donald Trump

“It was just about a little over 30 years ago when I started Microsoft. That was based on a vision that the microprocessor, the computer on a chip, combined with great software that we saw ourselves and other companies doing, could create something magical, a tool of empowerment.”
Bill Gates

What is your vision for your company? Does it stretch you and your company or is it just comfortable?

B Building culture.
If vision is where the company is going, values tell how the company gets there. Values outline acceptable behavior. Work gets done through people, and people are profoundly affected by culture. A great place to work can attract and retain the very best and a terrible place to work can drive away high performers. Culture is built in many ways, and the CEO sets the tone. His every action—or inaction—sends cultural messages. People take their cues about interpersonal values—trust, honesty, openness—from CEO’s actions as well.

“Culture isn’t one aspect of the game – it is the game!” Lou Gerstner – ex IBM CEO

“Good values attract good people.” John Wooden

Have you been clear on the core values and operating principles for your company? What are they?

C Team-building.
The CEO hires, fires, and leads the senior management team. They, in turn, hire, fire, and lead the rest of the organization. The CEO sets direction by communicating the strategy and vision of where the company is going. With clear direction, the team can rally together and make it happen. As the leader of the leaders, the CEO has to make them function smoothly together.

“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence upon one another and of strength to be derived from unity.” Vince Lombardi

“Surround yourself with people of integrity and get out of their way” Hector Ruiz – CEO of AMD

How well is your team functioning and is everyone pulling their weight?

D Capital allocation.
The CEO sets budgets, funds projects which support the strategy and ramps down projects which lose money or don’t support the strategy. He considers carefully the company’s major expenditures, and manages the firm’s capital. Some CEOs don’t consider themselves financial people, but at the end of the day, it is their decisions that determine the company’s financial fate. Sound decisions are key to your profitability and long term success. No surprise here!

“Business isn't about the score of the game you played in the last quarter or the last year. It's probably about decisions you made three or five years ago, and how well you were able to adjust your course.”

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco

On what basis do you make capital decisions and how does the need for quarterly results impact your longer term thinking and plans?

“Manage your top line of strategy, people and products and your bottom line will take care of itself.” Steve Jobs - CEO Apple



Check back tomorrow for the next tip. In the meantime ,answer the questions so that you can put some of these tips to use to accelerate your business.



John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

CEO tips I wish I’d had when I started

By John Maver

A presentation given at the Renaissance Forum for CEOs

Today, you may be at the top of the company’s organization chart.

HELP!!!!!

If you are a new CEO or have aspirations of being one, I hope you will do well and you may have learned some of these lessons already. If you have been in place for a while, this may be just a review for you and will help accelerate your business performance.

CEOs are in office for a shorter and shorter time. A Booze Allen study in the 2500 largest market cap companies has shown that in a decade the average tenure has been cut by more than 2/3rds from 9.5 years in 1995 to 4.6 in 2001 to just over 3 in 2006. What's more, the turnover is less and less at the CEO’s choosing. The non voluntary reasons for leaving have skyrocketed from 27% in 1995 to 53% in 2001 to 70% in 2006.

Why are CEOs turning over?

In about equal proportions the reasons are:
Merger driven
Performance driven
Regular Transition

Think about it. A very short time in place and only 1/3 are regular transition. CEOs had better hit the ground running and running well.

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." Successories

Many of us learned through on the job training. As we worked our way up to larger and larger responsibilities, we had the chance to hone the skills we learned first hand. That takes time and lots of experience. But there is another way and that is to learn from others who have gone before you and done so successfully.

Here are some CEO tips I’d wish I had when I first became a CEO. This isn’t a clipping service from the latest books. It is a summary of what I have found through my 36 years in general management to be most important, augmented by some pearls of wisdom from many other CEOs. When you have the time, read all the books. Better still; hire a smart business advisor consultant to provide the depth to these ideas.

You will note that there are some questions for you at the end of each section that relate to that section. Answer them. The only way to learn and make these tips worthwhile is to apply them to your business.

Here are the tips we will review.
1 What’s my job? What am I responsible for?
2 It’s the people. It’s all about the people.
3 The roadmap to your vision.
4 Who are you? What is the brand YOU?
5 “What’s in it for me” Your Customer
6 Stick with what you are good at.
7 Do it. Just do it!

Since this is a long presentation, I am going to split this up into bite-sized pieces of one tip at a time. Check in each day for the next tip.

John Maver
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

Christmas Performance Reviews

This appears to be Santa's attempt at business acceleration planning. Upgrading your company's talent pool is one way. The Maver Management Group could have showed him some others.

Enjoy!

John Maver
President
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management