Some CEOs are reluctant to discuss failure, but Barry J. Lipsky has a strategy for dealing with it. If you’re going to fail, says the president
and CEO of Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc., fail quickly. There’s a lot of competition out there, and the market is changing rapidly so
if your plan isn’t working, you need to move on and seize the next opportunity, he says. Lipsky has spent 22 years at Franklin and has
guided the company to fiscal 2007 revenue of $52 million. The company, which designs, develops, publishes and distributes electronic
information on handheld devices, is also known for its electronic translators and dictionaries. Smart Business spoke with Lipsky about
how doing strategic planning is like packing for vacation.
Recognize your strengths. While we were
working on our strategic plan, we did an
exercise called ‘packing the suitcase.’ Say
you’re taking a trip, and you only have one
suitcase you can take. What would you definitely pack, what would you pack if you can
fit it in, and what would you leave home?
All these were related to the business, of
course. Like, we want to continue in the
education market, so that’s going in the
suitcase. We’re not sure whether we want
to design our own processing chips anymore — which we’ve always done — so
maybe that’s something that if we have
room, we’d like to take.
Then you have the business units that
were not only underperforming, but the
categories of the products have sort of run
their life. Like organizers — before palms
and BlackBerrys, people used to use electronic organizers to keep phone numbers,
calendar entries; that was a business that
we were in — we still are, but that might be
something that you don’t pack.
Execute that plan. One thing about the planning process is when you get through with
it, you think, ‘Whew, I’m glad this is over.’
But it’s not over. That’s just the beginning
— now you’ve got to do it. Now you’ve got to
deliver it, and that’s the more difficult part.
We set up metrics, started measuring
stuff every quarter, measure how you’re
doing against the plan. We’re now in the
process of doing another one.
You learn from every experience in business. We did some things right, and we did
some things wrong. The world has
changed around us, especially being in the
technology business. We’re in the process
of redoing it differently.
For example, we make products that
appeal to both native English-speaking
Spanish and native Spanish-speaking
English.
It’s hard for us to measure because when
someone goes into Best Buy and buys this
product, we have no idea whether they’re a
native American-speaking student wanting
to learn Spanish or vice versa. Now, we get some info through registration cards, and
we know what we believe it is, but it’s been
harder to measure.
Fill gaps with your hiring. You generally hire
to fill a position. You want a new person
because someone left. Look at the skill set
around that person. Look at the core team
that person is going to interface with — we
want to fill those gaps.
So, say you have a great salesman, but
he’s terrible with numbers. You ask him to
make a spreadsheet, but it takes forever
and it’s wrong.
Now, you can try to teach him to do a
spreadsheet better, but it’s not his thing —
he doesn’t have a knack for it. Or, you can
make sure other people on that team have
that strength.
Make sure when you’re hiring people to
fill positions that you look at the positions
around them and you look to fill the gaps.
Having lived through both sides of it, we’ve
had situations where a senior manager, a
manager and the next person down all
share the same weakness.
They were all very good, but they all
shared the same weakness. That creates
problems, so you have to make sure you’re
filling that gap.
Every individual has their own skills.
People have their own comfort zones, what they like to do, what they have a passion
about and like doing. Now, you don’t want
someone to just be in a comfort zone and
only do those things.
You want stretch goals, but you have to
feed the frenzy that burns inside someone.
Then you have to take away some things
they don’t do that well — or cover them.
Connect your employees to the plan. One of the
challenges I want to overcome is that some
people — no matter how involved they are
— they still don’t feel part of it.
If their opinion wasn’t used, that’s a tough
one to overcome. But I can if I can do this
other part, which is broader: I have to
make sure that every employee knows
how that plan works, what it means to
them, what’s their role in meeting it.
So even a guy in the receiving department
understands that he’s connected to the plan.
Find solutions, not more problems. No one
wakes up in the morning to fail. But there are
people who are very talented, yet sometimes
their baggage or issues, they don’t let go.
You try to work with them, but you might
have to exit them from the company if
they’re becoming the 80-20 rule, and they
seem to be on the 20 side but seem to be
creating enough bedlam that it affects the
company and affects other people.
I want them to come to me with solutions,
not problems. Don’t send me an e-mail
about somebody else and ask, ‘What do you
think?’ I want to know what you think.
I’ve been trying to do more of telling
someone, you try to pose things more as
questions rather than telling them, ‘Go
back and tell them such and such. Did you
think about something like this?’
I try to help people get there. Motivating
is about letting them win, letting them have
successes that they really feel are their
own. People talk about empowerment a
lot, but when you’re empowered, I have
very high expectations that they’re going to
meet what they say.
HOW TO REACH: Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc., (800)
266-5626 or www.franklin.com