Recently while coaching an executive, she explained that she had had a busy week of meetings. One of these meetings happened to be a Board Meeting. Asking her what was discussed, she said, there were just a few general items. One of these “general items” was a new marketing campaign. The executive also mentioned that she was on the Marketing Committee. I asked how the Marketing Committee would be interacting with the new marketing campaign. She informed me that the marketing committee had not met since the organization had acquired seven new offices from a competitor almost a year earlier. Questioning how this was, she explained that everyone had just been too busy.

We then began to discuss an upcoming marketing campaign the organization was about to launch between May and August. As it turns out there are actually three marketing campaigns going on between May and August. Two will target new customers and one will target current customers for new products and services. I began asking her about how many new customers the organization might acquire through one of its campaigns prior to the acquisition. She said about 15. We then calculated how the acquisition might increase that number. We then did this with each of the campaigns. After all of the calculating, it was determined that this organization could be looking at around 540 new customers or additional accounts from existing customers. Can your organization accommodate such growth in a four-month period? What systems and services would your organization need to have in place to ensure smooth growth? Examples might include the following.

One of the biggest drainers on a manager’s time, energy and productivity are underperformers. The reason these folks are such a drain is partly the manger’s own fault. Here’s why. Managers often do not know how to address these time eating, energy draining and productivity-robbing individuals. More often than not, it’s procrastination. The reason this task is procrastinated is that the manager dreads having such conversations. The conversation must take place.

When a manager fails to have such conversations, time eating, energy draining and productivity-robbing behaviors can infect the team, the department and even the entire organization. Soon the manager finds it difficult to concentrate, begins avoiding the non-performing individual and maybe even his or her own boss because of fear of a conversation with his own boss about the lack of progress on projects. Further, the manager may terminal termination fear. In other words, the manger keeps this employee on the job until he or she has no fear of termination and the time eating, energy draining, nonproductive behaviors are just an accepted thing. At the end of each day, the manager feels tired, listless, depressed and begins dreading going to work. What is a simple solution to such problems?

Bringing people with differing viewpoints, backgrounds, cultures, behaviors and communication styles together in the workplace, conflict is likely to rear its head. Conflict can manifest and fester in the likeness of bullying, non-cooperation, back-stabling, insulting remarks and innuendos. Results of these acts appear in low productivity, absenteeism, increased stress, illness, and failed projects. Organizational change adds even more disruptions.

Mergers and acquisitions often lead to the most conflict. A few decades ago, organizational change was rare. In the past decade, the story is different as mergers and acquisitions have increased at a rapid pace. Organizational changes are not just for large organizations anymore. At times, over 80% of small organizations will make large changes. When one considers that, only an estimated 50% of mergers are successful in the UK and that the US has an even lower success rate of 23%, it becomes glaringly clear how important it is to understand how to manage change. Here are a few guidelines.

How does an employee know how to perform his or her job without a job description? How can a job description be formulated without job analysis and a list of competencies? How can an organization know the competencies it needs unless it conducts strategic planning? As a tool, job analysis is not new. In fact, job analysis may go all the way back to Genesis, ancient China and Greece follow. However, modern, more systematic job analysis began around 1900. Using job analysis as a strategic tool, may be a more recent idea as job analysis does not always enjoy a warm welcome.