Tweet Your People Right
Whether or not you believe the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, when push comes to shove all that matters is an organization’s stars and cash cows. Cash cows, however, can become obsolete, whereas stars will always shine. The classic BCG Matrix as reproduced above (sans legend) provides guidance for organizations as to how to distribute their resources. The traditional approach is milk your cash cows and use the proceeds to fund stars and question marks. Question marks generally have great potential but are unproven. Once it becomes clear whether a question mark is a star or a dog (its bark was bigger than its bite), an organization should fund the stars and divest the dogs. Too many organizations keep their dogs when they should put them to sleep. This hogs resources which should be devoted to the stars.
The BCG matrix can be applied to any organization because resources are always limited. GE found out the hard way that if you hold on to your dogs it can poison your cash cows and take resources away from the stars which are critical to growth. This model can also be applied to professional services firms. Some individuals within such firms have more potential (to produce revenue) than others. The firm’s resources should therefore be more heavily weighted towards those individuals. The question marks (new hires, junior team members) should be given a long enough leash to sink or swim. Under-performers should be summarily terminated, cash cows (hard workers without the desire/ability to bring in new business) should be given just enough resources to continue producing, and stars should be given whatever they require to shine as they are the lifeblood of any organization.
Hat tip to AdvertisingAge, whose recent article titled How to Turn High-Profile Employees Into Brand Ambassadors hits on the point above. The article highlights Fortune 500 companies that are tapping into the personal brands of their most inspiring, effusive and public employees. In fact, rather than being viewed as renegade moonlighters, these individuals are being given the tools to drum up new business and build brand awareness. Here is one gem: “Hiring employees who have established personal brands will help companies immediately inherit value and relevance in a crowded market and may lead to quicker results in meeting growth objectives.” Another take-away is to tweet your people right and foster employee use of social networks to leverage both their individual brand and that of the organization.
A recent study found that the brands most engaged in social media are also experiencing higher financial success rates than their stone-age competitors. Remember, whether you like or not, individuals within your organization are brands in and of themselves. Think of your organization as a mutual fund holding a lot of individual employees. The higher the value of those individuals, the greater the value of the fund. Don’t let dogs dilute the value.
