Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/679551
20 FEDA News & Views In 5 Fundamentals for the Wholesale Distribution Manager, there are a number of team-building exercises to promote proactive problem solving and cross-functional thinking—as in representatives from different departments working together to strengthen the value stream. The goal is to have a mini-huddle culture, where employees gravitate toward one another to address concerns or improve cus- tomer service. If hiring a professional to teach them how to huddle is not an option, Ambrose recommends initiating the process by assembling 'cross-functional' teams of four to six people, and then individually walking each group through the mechanics of establishing a meeting format. Introducing confl ict-resolution tools like the fi shbone diagram is also critical to the success of the process. "Initially, the branch manager will have to serve as a facili- tator to encourage the huddle concept when an issue sur- faces," says Ambrose. "For example, a manager notices that a couple of inside salespeople are extremely busy and seem to have a problem getting back to customers, while other inside salespeople have lighter workloads. It would be easy for him to intervene and direct Bob and Sue to share the load, but if you really want to succeed in developing profi table share gain, there must be a strong sense of employee engagement in the business where everyone is aligned in providing the glue that holds together the customer value stream. "So the manager asks inside sales to get together as a group and fi gure out how to share workloads. Inside sales begins to work through the issue as a team and decides to put all of its special pricing in a binder or digitally fi le it, giv- ing everyone access to the data. Now, when Bob gets busy, another inside salesperson can assist his customer. "Over time, people will start to get together on their own but this is not a one-and-done process," says Ambrose. "After fi ve, six, eight months to a year of encouraging employees to work together in teams, it will become a way of life and they won't even realize they're doing it on a regular basis." A manager's communication habits set the tone in the building and directly affect the culture of the organization. Most managers are poor communicators. There's tons of research to support the claim (like the recent leadership poll by Interact/Harris), but Ambrose wanted to test the validity for himself. So for seven years, he asked workshop attendees for permission to survey all of their employees, via a link on his website, about 'life in the branch.' In addition to 12 multiple-choice questions, there were three open-ended ones: What does the manager need to stop doing? What does the manager need to do more of and what does the manager need to do better? "Most of the responses regarding what managers could do better or what they should stop doing had to do with communication styles or habits," says Ambrose. "When we showed our managers, there were a lot of Aha moments. They simply weren't aware and did not appreciate how some of their minor little grimaces could impact employee performance." Trust him—he knows. "I've got a round face, and as I got older my jowls started to hang down more, apparently giv- ing me the appearance of a frown," says Ambrose. "Never occurred to me until I did a feedback exercise with my team and I asked them to tell me something about me. They said, 'You're always unhappy and intense. It would be great if you could smile occasionally.' After the session, I went in the mir- ror and smiled but it didn't look like I was smiling at all. "So I called a meeting and I told the group, 'If you see this face, I'm not upset, I'm not mad. I can't help the way my cheeks look and I wish I had known about this 20 years ago.' Everyone started to laugh." One of the prompts he often gives workshop attendees is to list their good communication habits (like publicly acknowledging good work and consistently asking for employee feedback). Some struggle to come up with one, which is why Ambrose suggests periodically soliciting the help of a third party to survey employees—and starting sim- ple. What does the manager need to stop doing? What does the manager need to do more of? What does the manager need to do better? "That's great feedback and this is what you need to do more of," he says. "Most managers will tell you, 'I'm running the branch my way.' That's not going to get employees to hitch onto your train. When you're the branch manager or the owner of the business, you have to be on stage. You have to think about behavioral changes. Be yourself at home. If your personality traits are lousy, you can't effectively drive the business." *All of the excerpts contained in this article were taken from Jim Ambrose's book 5 Fundamentals for the Wholesale Distribution Branch Manager, Second Edition. Branch Management continued 4 Improving the Productivity of Outside Sales According to Ambrose's research, many managers admit struggling in this area because they do not want to challenge their salespeople. But to gain profi table market share growth, they must learn to focus their teams on the right accounts. 5 Developing a Sound Understanding of Account Basics This is the other area in which many managers readily admit that they could use more training, says Ambrose. Mastering fi nancial analysis and processes is key to knowing and leading your business.