Employer Track: Why Cable Franklin

In This Issue

Highlighted Candidates

Why Cable & Franklin?

Motivational Quotes

Formal Leadership Part 4

Forecasting for Growth

Highlighted Candidates

VP of Finance & Accounting, Agribusiness

CFO/Controller, Manufacturing

VP of Finance/CFO, Service Ind.

Search on over 50,000 candidates in various industries and levels across the United States;

take a look to see if there is someone for your team.

Why Cable & Franklin?

Cable & Franklin leverages its roots in business consulting to relate to clients and candidates alike, and has developed a proven search methodology that delivers:

- Fast results!

- Accuracy: 95% of job candidates receive interviews

- Accepted offers: 96% of job offers are accepted.

- Longevity: 91% of candidates still work with our clients after three years or more.

- Ability to find new talent: 94% of candidates come from referrals. We find qualified candidates you can't find on your own.

Here's what our clients say about us.

Let us help you find the right talent for your team.

Motivational Quotes

"The only way to avoid failure is to never try anything new." ~ Unknown

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." ~Mark Twain

"Nothing can stop a person with the right attitude from pursuing their goals." ~Uknown

"Success comes to those who make it happen." ~Gary Sorrell

Greetings,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Source, if this is your first issue, then welcome! We appreciate the opportunity to share best practices in leadership, management, personal and professional growth, recruiting, retention, and other areas critical to your success. Thanks for reading and feel free to share with others.

Enjoy your newsletter!

Kent Cable
Cable & Franklin Executive Search, LLC

Formal Leadership

This is part four of a five part series on Formal Leadership. Each concept works alone however; fits nicely with the other articles. Please contact us if you missed an article.

The Leader As Director

In the director's role, the leader is like a symphony orchestra conductor. Everyone knows their part, comes in on cue, and maintains the tempo that has been established. The conductor does not play the instruments, The Source that is the role of the musicians. Each musician does not decide when to play, that is the role of the conductor. The role of the conductor is to elicit the best possible individual performance in concert with the entire orchestra to create a symphony of sound. The conductor encourages and contributes to practice. Each individual knows his/her part. Each knows how critical that part is to the whole. The conductor brings each of the individual parts in at precisely the right time and place.

The leader/director establishes the direction for the organization and for the people. This does not mean the leader is the authoritarian expert who knows all the answers. Rather, it means that the leader, as director, gathers the input and ideas from everyone in the organization, establishes goals, and aligns the resources to achieve those goals. The director creates conditions under which peak performance can thrive. The director continuously evaluates whether the direction serves both the organization's best interests and the best interests of all individuals involved.

Leadership Questionnaire

1. The leader/director establishes the direction for the company. True______ False______

2. Today's leader must foster a culture where improvement is the norm, not the exception.

True______ False______

3. The leader/director knows all the answers. True______ False______

Our next newsletter will discuss Authority and Power. (part five)

Adapted from Leadership Development, Resource Associates Corporation. All rights reserved worldwide. This material shall not be copied by any means without the express written consent of Resource Associates Corporation.

Leadership questionnaire answers

1)     True - The leader/director gathers the input and ideas from everyone, establishes goals, and aligns the resources to achieve those goals.

2)     True.

3)     False - The director does continuously evaluate whether the direction serves both the company and the best interests of all individuals involved.

Forecasting for Growth The Source

To be effective as a leader, you must develop skills in strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is a process whereby you learn how to make your business vision a reality by developing your abilities in team work, problem solving, and critical thinking. It is also a tool to help you confront change, plan for and make transitions, and envision new possibilities and opportunities.

Strategic thinking is like making a movie. Every movie has a context (or story) which it uses to get you to experience a certain outcome (an emotion, in this case) at the end of the movie. Strategic thinking is much the same in that it requires you to envision what you want your ideal outcome to be for your business and then works backwards by focusing on the story of HOW you will be able to reach your vision.

As you develop a strategic vision for your business, there are five different criteria that you should focus on. These five criteria will help you define your ideal outcome. In addition, they will help you set up and develop the steps necessary to make your business vision a reality.

The following is a list of the five criteria of the strategic thinking process:

· Organization. The organization of your business involves the people you will have working for you, the organizational structure of your business, and the resources necessary to make it all work. What will your organization look like? What type of structure will support your vision? How will you combine people, resources, and structure together to achieve your ideal outcome?
· Observation. When you are looking down at the world from an airplane, you can see much more than when you are on the ground. Strategic thinking is much the same in that it allows you to see things from "higher up." By increasing your powers of observation, you will begin to become more aware of what motivates people, how to solve problems more effectively, and how to distinguish between alternatives.
· Views. Views are simply different ways of thinking about something. In strategic thinking, there are four viewpoints to take into consideration when forming your business strategy: the environmental view; the marketplace view; the project view; and the measurement view. Views can be used as tools to help you think about outcomes, identify critical elements and adjust your actions to achieve your ideal position.
· Driving Forces. What are the driving forces that will make your ideal outcome a reality? What is your company's vision and mission? Driving forces usually lay the foundation for what you want people to focus on in your business (i.e., what you will use to motivate others to perform). Examples of driving forces might include: individual and organizational incentives; empowerment and alignment; qualitative factors such as a defined vision, values, and goals; productive factors like a mission or function; quantitative factors such as results or experience; and others such as commitment, coherent action, effectiveness, productivity, and value.
· Ideal Position. After working through the first four phases of the strategic thinking process, you should be able to define your ideal position. Your ideal position outline should include: the conditions you have found to be necessary if your business is to be productive; the niche in the marketplace that your business will fill; any opportunities that may exist either currently or in the future for your business; the core competencies or skills required in your business; and the strategies and tactics you will use to pull it all together.

By working through these five areas, you will begin to get a clearer picture of exactly how your business vision can be accomplished. As your vision becomes more focused, your ideas will appear stronger and more credible. Not only will it be easier to convince others that your idea is a good one, but it will also be easier to maintain your own conviction and motivation when you reach any pitfalls or obstacles in the road.

Overall, you can apply strategic thinking skills to any area of your life. But by making a concerted effort to apply them specifically to your business venture, you will have a much better chance of bringing your vision to life. And isn't that what you want?