Cerius Business Today Cerius Executives

On this episode of Cerius Business Today, Kristen has a discussion with a supply chain and operations expert, Michael Smith. They talk about ERP Implementation, the importance of working capital, inventory turnover rates and more.

On today's episode of Cerius Business Today, Kristen speaks with Interim Executive Bromley Beadle about the differences between a troubled company and the company in turnaround and how you can avoid being either.

On today's episode of cerius business today, Pamela and Kristin talk about how an interim executive can give a CEO more time for strategic initiatives.
 
On today's episode of cerius business today, Pamela and Kristin talk about how an interim executive can give a CEO more time for strategic initiatives.
Full Transcript Below
SPEAKER: Pamela
I've actually had three conversations just in the past few weeks with CEOs about this exact same situation and some things are doing they've come to us saying I want to bring in an interim GM. Why? Because I don't want to be the one that everyone goes to with all the questions I've got to get out of that someone else it was. He'd want to bring in an operations expert and an interim CEO or part time CEO his case because of cash flow and just simply to get him out of the day to day. You've seen not before with clients what types of result, wait when we bring them in and what's the conversation with the CEO after the fact, they're relieved, they're happy. It's kind of like they've got four or five hats on the top of their head. And they're no longer having to walk around juggling the hats, a picture someone walking sideways and then sidestepping trying to juggle the hats on top. They're able to hand them off to someone else. You know I hesitated when I answered that question because it's different. You know some people are relieved. Some people are, they don't know what to do because people are coming to them anymore. They're going to somebody else or they're worried. Oh my gosh you know am I going to become irrelevant. So there is an adjustment period for that. But again if you look at that person is in there to help you. And that's really the underlying reason why you brought that person in. They are there to help you, not to make you irrelevant not to you know take all the questions it's to give you more to be more time to be strategic to really take your company evaluate where you are today and know what next steps need to be taken because nobody has time to do that anymore because they're so involved in the day to day. And I know I get that way too, I'm so involved in day to day I I barely have time to think about oh my gosh our strategic plan you know we implementing it or are we executing and or you know shall we start planning for next year or I just saw something in my industry I need to be taking a look at more closely I don't have time for all that this gives you all of that time and so much to do with we actually had cut down a 30 million dollar manufacturing firm. The CPI was the original founder that built it up and kind of got into a rut and had gotten through that the team had needed to make some changes in the leadership team. And was it was a tough grueling thing to make those changes because those employees have been with them since the very beginning and he was struggling with that but yet they were continually issues going on. He wasn't sure that he wanted to be the CEO anymore and was thinking of selling out of the company or all of the company. Wasn't sure what to do so decide to bring in an interim president in the time tested out and see how that went. And it was interesting, having that individual make some of those tougher decisions be more of the day to day interface with the employees and help mentor some and figure out some of the leadership gaps and make the changes. He was having fun again. He actually enjoyed the business again not running the day to day. But as you said this weight had been lifted all shoulders, he was able to be more strategic and actually started talking some competitors and found a competitor in it and ended up doing some acquisitions. It was enthused and energized instead of sailing. He ended up growing the company.
It's amazing when you have more time how much you can do for your company. I mean you wanted to grow, you wanted to be successful but if you're so caught up in the day to day you're never going to get there. So yea

On this episode of business today, Pam and Kristen talk about why interim management is every CEOs secret weapon.
 
Full Transcript below:
SEAKER: Kristen
And as you scale a company you really can’t do it without people and talent which is why everyone is such in a rush to get the right talent in the right places with large scale companies to grow them. We’ve got everyone in place including our leadership team and then John walks in the door on Friday morning, my number two, my right hand and says.
SPEAKER: Pamela
I’m leaving. Everyone has experience that at one time or another.
SPEAKER: Kristen
My heart sinks if it’s not going into heart attack mode.
SPEAKER: Pamela
It happens.
SPEAKER: Kristen
And this happens everything from John decides he’s leaving as of Monday, he may offer me two weeks’ notice. I have two weeks to get someone else in place. I cannot go without my right. Without a right hand what do I do?
SPEAKER: Pamela
You know it’s interesting. We all need to not be blindsided by this because think about the talent market right now. It is so tight. Talent is in such demand that no matter how well you know your employees. Somebody can come in and steal one right out from under you. So yes you want to take very good care of your employees that they don’t do that but sometimes money talks and they’re going to leave no matter what you’re doing for them. So you have to be ready, you have to have a solution that you can quickly implement to be able to fill that position, should something like that happen.
SPEAKER: Kristen
Personally I think that every CEO and their succession plan, it should be kind of like a trust or a will if anything happens call my attorney. They’ve got everything, you ever see on needs to have in case of anything. You’re Cerius. Call their number. I’ve talked to Cerius. I know exactly what they know my company. They know my leadership team, they know everything I need. Call them in case of emergency and fortunately that doesn’t happen. We get the phone call at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon that says my CFO or my CEO just gave notice, they gave me two weeks’ notice. How quick can you get someone in your training, we’ve had them in there by Tuesday Wednesday. We can absolutely interim management can be used for those cases but there’s a number of other scenarios.
SPEAKER: Pamela
Absolutely. Absolutely. So another one is you want to promote someone, they’ve been really good in their job but there’s no one to succeed them. They have no one they can step up to take the roles of a sudden, you leave them in that position. That’s true. That can happen and what can happen from that scenario is that person will leave because they’re not getting promoted so you don’t want that to happen. So you have to make sure you have some kind of succession plan in place to be able to move people around or you have a scenario where that person really needs to go back, like they really meant to go they were meant to go a year ago but you didn’t do a thing about it. Well you need to do something about those people because all they’re doing is hurting the growth of your company.
SPEAKER: Kristen
And that’s a tough one because we all have their sacred cows or otherwise. We all have someone, we look at our leadership team, you know either the company and most the time we here. My company has outgrown them. And that’s a really tough move because there’s two decision points there. One, how do I replace them with someone who is the right person and what I do with this individual? Sometimes you can upscale them. We’ve done shadow programs where we’ve brought in let’s say an interim CEO to work with the operations manager or director of operations coach then gave them the till the toolkits worked with them for six to 12 months and they were actually able to step into that role and be saved. Actually I love that story as I manufacturer about 15 million and that individual is

On this episode of Cerius Business Today, Pam and Kristen talk about the importance of learning from your peers and other items they Wished they knew when. And Later Kristen speaks seasoned Interim CMO Whitney Vosbrough explains the importance of finding the 'why' of your business. He shares his tips for creating and delivering a powerful marketing message that resonates with people.

On Today's episode, Pam and Kristen talk about how to build an advisory board. And later in the episode, Kristen speaks with Jed Daly about peer groups without agendas.