How to Implement Fit-for-Purpose Organization-wide Management Systems

Management SystemsNo two companies are exactly the same, so why would you implement a similar system as other businesses?

Every company has its own unique set of goals, procedures, and challenges, not to mention a team of employees hired specifically to help execute tasks for that particular organization. So, it only makes sense to put a system in place that is designed specifically for your company and no one else’s.

However, one of the biggest challenges an executive will face is finding the time to create an organization-wide management system. But think of it this way: implementing a system that is not only functional, but also bullet-proof will save you time and energy in the future and will give both you and your employees a point of reference whenever a challenge arises that needs to be addressed.

Before we move ahead with how to put a system in place, let’s first look at what exactly a system is. Generally speaking, a system is a method for solving issues and challenges that are specific to a particular business in a strategic and effortless fashion. One of the biggest perks of having a system in place is that, in time, you’ll have step-by-step reference points that you and your employees can refer back to, making the execution of different tasks a seamless and painless process.

Just like in life, where you have an order of things you need to do every morning before you can leave for work, having a system in place at your organization makes it that much easier to move seamlessly from task to task, thus allowing you and your staff the time and energy to tackle bigger things.

There are a variety of things that can be systemized at a business. Some examples include, implementing a communication system; creating a system for hiring new employees; and creating a scheduling system for meetings, tasks, and deadlines. But before you put a system in place, it’s important to figure out what issues need tackling first.

For example, perhaps in-house business meetings need to be streamlined within your company. To make the most of your meeting time, there should be a system in place for scheduling meetings, a plan for taking notes during the meeting, and an actionable protocol for following up and executing items that you and your team discussed during the meeting. Or maybe your team members are struggling with the best way to communicate with one another. Thanks to technology, there is an endless array of tools to choose from, such as email, text messaging, and implementing a 10-minute huddle with your team every morning to touch base on what projects everyone is working on that day. Whatever you implement, keep in mind your company culture. One plan may work seamlessly for a certain group of employees, while not so well for a different group.

As you plan out your system, take into account each step that should be addressed. For example, say you want to create a new meeting system for your company. One step would be deciding what kind of platform should be used for scheduling meetings. Other steps would include addressing who would be responsible for organizing meetings, who should take the minutes during the meeting, and what tasks need to be executed after the meeting is finished.

Once you have a vision of what kind of system you want to put into place and you’ve worked out many of the kinks to ensure that it’s an actionable system that will work for your specific company, share your plan with your staff. The only way your system will work is to make sure that everyone is on board and understands the process and procedures related to the system. It’s also a good way to receive feedback from employees. If anything, they might find areas of improvement in the way that day-to-day operations take place that you might have overlooked. Seeking their feedback is also a good way of making them feel involved and will make them more likely to abide by the system moving forward.

Even though there is some footwork involved in planning out your fit-for-purpose system, remember that the hardest part is creating it and implementing it. Once you pass that hurdle, your system will help address issues as they arise and give you a roadmap of how to navigate them. Remember, having a system is one of the best investments that you can make as a business leader.

Tabitha Laser is a multi-faceted professional with over 25 years of leadership experience in a variety of industries ranging from oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and more. Her diverse background has provided her opportunities to work with government agencies and some of the world’s largest companies, including Fortune 500 companies, BP, 3M, and General Mills. Her expertise has fueled her passion to help shape the next generation of leaders, especially millennials, to help avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors and lead beyond best. Tabitha is the author of Organization Culture Killers. The first book in a series of leadership books she calls, “The Deadly Practices.” Follow Tabitha.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

/by

Voice of Experience: Kimberly Smith, National Co-Chair, Private Equity, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

As Kimberly Smith has moved up in the legal profession, she’s also advanced her belief that along the way, it’s vital to be true to yourself.

Kimberly Smith“When I started my law career I often heard this advice, but it took years of experience as a professional woman at a law firm to truly appreciate it,” she says, adding that she has seen situations where people were trying to be someone that they thought they should be, and the lack of authenticity was clear. And, as she has learned, success is not just about being smart and working hard.

Owning her Career

Of course, Smith is both those things.

Smith first joined Katten as a summer associate with a passion for the law. Upon graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in 1998, she returned to Katten as an associate and became immersed in the dot-com bubble and the funding of IPOs in record time for internet startup companies.

And then the bubble burst. She credits her “trial by fire” experience in the dot-com world with teaching her how not to approach deals. Now, she prefers to dig in to discover and address her clients’ long-term objectives, not just their immediate needs. In the aftermath, Smith easily transitioned to M&A work in many industries, including healthcare.

Her success led her to be promoted to partner in 2006. After a five-year stint at another law firm, she rejoined Katten in 2015 as co-head of the nationwide Private Equity practice. “There were many compelling reasons to return to Katten. It provides a strong platform with phenomenal specialists with robust experience, and one of the strongest healthcare regulatory practices in the industry,” she explains. Smith has been back three-and-a-half years, enjoying the intellectual charge of working on complicated deal structures and working closely with tax partners to find new ways to accomplish client goals that might seem impossible at first glance.

“My clients are under a lot of pressure to get the deals done quickly, and in cases where the other side won’t budge, I need to figure out how to bridge that gap,” Smith says, adding that one of the best parts of the job is the relationships she has built with repeat clients.

“I might work with an entrepreneur very closely as they sell their business and then I’m finished working with them. But with a private equity fund, I might work on their deals for 20 years so we get to know each other and work together well. Time and again I come back to the fact that the intellectual challenges and personal relationships are what make my job so wonderful.”

Taking Advantage of Every Opportunity

Smith shares that she came in to the working world with mindset familiar to many—that if she was smart and worked hard, she would be successful. “I wasn’t prepared for the fact that in every organization, it takes more than just hard work. In order to really start climbing the ladder you need take advantage of every opportunity from mentoring and networking to developing business to seeking out leadership positions.”

“It was when I started to engage myself at every level of the firm – with my clients, the leadership, my peers, and younger associates – that I started to get more traction in terms of advancing my career.”

Along with that, you have to learn to be comfortable with self-promotion, because it’s necessary to put yourself out there and tout your hard work. When she returned to Katten in an authoritative role, she realized that her words carried more weight.

“Women should not be shy about self-promotion. It doesn’t mean you have to go on about how great you are. You can keep it very factual and state something that isn’t an opinion or a boast. In law, both women and men have to make sure that people appreciate their value,” Smith says. So, for example, if you’re a litigator who just won a big case, make sure others are aware of your accomplishment.

Integrating Balance

Smith enjoys her position on the firm’s Women’s Leadership Forum National Mentorship Panel, which consists of more than a dozen women partners who counsel other women with professional and personal advice. Each mentor is profiled so rising attorneys at the firm can choose whomever is the best resource for a particular topic—everything from how to balance work and family to how to develop business.

Outside the office, Smith spends time with her husband Stephen and their two daughters—Victoria, age 11, and Natalie, age 5—and recently enjoyed a vacation to Orlando with them.

She’s also recently discovered a new hobby, when last year one of her clients invited her to be on their team to compete in the Spartan Race, an obstacle course that involves four miles of climbing walls, jumping over fire, carrying sandbags and crawling through muddy trenches. “It was a great way to develop a deeper connection to my client, but I was terrified of an obstacle course,” she admits. She began training and embarked on a rigorous fitness program that she acknowledges she might not have otherwise started. Although she completed the race a year ago, she’s maintained the workout regimen because she realized how much better she felt being active and strong.

“It presented a great turning point for me to make time to take care of myself. A lot of good has come out of that,” she said. And Smith adds, nothing bonds you more with a client than being covered in mud. “If I can be a warrior on the Spartan field, navigating the battle field of a transaction should be a piece of cake.”

/by

Rising Star: Sarah Zilenovski, Marketing Manager; ClearSale

Sarah ZilenovskiBefore starting her career, Sarah Zilenovski had always believed you had to choose your area of expertise while still in college; while in reality, as she found you can build your path as you go.

While obtaining the necessary skills is vital, of course, she believes it’s important to plan while keeping an open mind. “We must remember that we can’t control external variables and that the person we are today is not the person we will be in the future. And as we change, so do our dreams and desires.”

And that means that your career might take unexpected twists, which you can embrace if you are confident in your abilities and potential. “I always believed that I could choose the companies or assignments that were appealing to me, not rely on it going the other way around,” says Zilenovski.

A Career Built on Seeking New Challenges

Born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Zilenovski moved to the United States in 2015, bringing solid credentials—including master’s and bachelor’s degrees in finance and business management from a top Brazilian business school—and experience.
She began her career in 2007 as an intern for P&G, working on customer business development. Soon after, she was hired as a finance manager for P&G largest manufacturing facility in Brazil. One year later, hoping to become more involved with the business side, she moved back to P&G’s headquarters to work as a finance manager for the commercial team, specifically working with P&G’s distributors and wholesalers.

After five years of a successful career at P&G, she began to think she’d like to try a smaller company, ideally one with a more direct social impact. For her, it was a leap, but she landed successfully at ClearSale, a company fighting against fraudsters—and was the fastest growing medium-sized company in Brazil.

There, she pivoted back to sales and marketing, where she had started at P&G; her first role was to manage the sales team during a large restructuring in the commercial area. That entailed recreating everything from the sales teams’ portfolios to the go-to-market strategy. In addition much of her focus was on the joint creation and customization of solutions with enterprise prospects and clients.

At that point it became clear to her that she preferred combining her business background with her proven communication and analytical skills, rather than leading the sales teams. She was subsequently invited to join ClearSale’s international team, with three other Brazilian peers, to open ClearSale’s first foreign branch, based in the United States, entirely from scratch.

After that successful launch, she is responsible for ClearSale’s global marketing and sales strategy, excluding the native market of Brazil. Zilenovski also recently started her MBA at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, which she says is “a childhood dream, to attend one of the top American schools.” That’s one of the professional achievements she is most proud of so far—working in a position of great autonomy, at a company that trusts her insight and skills, while attending one of the best business schools worldwide.

A Work Culture That Meets All Her Needs

While Zilenovski has had a number of role models along the way, her first positive impressions started at home, with her parents who both held PhDs and instilled in her the importance of investing in knowledge.
In addition, her first boss at P&G, Ricardo Wasserman, gave her an early education in integrity—making it clear that rules are needed to define right and wrong, and there’s no space to question them.
At ClearSale, she finds the current EVP, Rafael Lourenco, to be a great example of being excellent while respecting your own desires, needs and weaknesses, by truly believing that we first must like what we do on a day-to-day basis. “After all, if our work makes us miserable it will be a lose-lose situation in the long term, even if we make it work in the short term.”

And that fits well with her goals of future success, which to her is far more than aspiring to a specific title or salary. For Zilenovski, success comes from working for a company with a high social impact, while considering that work/life balance can be a day-to-day challenge—it’s a marathon, not a sprint, she says. She appreciates she can build a routine that fits what she wants or needs in any given situation, such as flexible working hours and the ability to work from a home office. ClearSale’s culture, which focuses on diversity and flexibility, has been the perfect fit for her. “There are no distinctions regarding gender,” she says. “And it’s important to me that I have autonomy in an environment where titles don’t shape my possibilities,” she says.

/by