Herb Koplowitz

Consider the reason most entrepreneurs made the switch from employee to business builder . In many cases, apart from wanting to pursue a mission they could not achieve working for someone else, these business owners have started independent organizations in pursuit of a lifestyle they could not access previously. But all too often, these entrepreneurs find themselves working endless hours in their business, with no time to work on it or create a system that...

Even if, as the owner of your business, you do not have a close relationship with all of your employees, you should work to engender trust among the entire team. Small efforts to show that you have their best interests at heart can inspire greater loyalty and lead to a better working dynamic. Regardless of your best intentions to have a strong rapport with every one of your employees, the reality of building a business will get in the way. As the founder...

When first establishing a business, it may seem easier to address issues as you work and create solutions within the context of each problem. However, as you build the firm and grow your team, it is wise to create a set of standards regarding employee conduct and company policies. Not only does this bring a degree of uniformity to your operations, it enables you to fairly manage the team and gives you a point of reference when employee or client conflicts arise....

Entrepreneurs who run their own business and a team of employees are constantly developing themselves and others. In order to achieve a maximum level of productivity, increase performance across the company and continue to grow in a professional capacity, businesses and the people who run them need to boost their competency. But how does one do that? As Norm wrote in The Entrepreneurial Journey , there is a competency development curve containing five...

In any business, regardless of industry, the C-suite's main role is to provide the broader vision for the enterprise and determine the corporate culture. Essentially, the attitudes of CEOs, CFOs and other leading executives will serve as an example for those operating beneath them. This is why it is so important for top leaders to create and follow a set of ethical guidelines, which can then trickle down to the managers and team members who oversee the...

As a business builder , you will find that you gradually have to relinquish direct control over some aspects of your organization. This is especially true regarding human resource management. When you have established a hierarchy in your business, you will not be able to directly communicate with every member of your team. Therefore, you need to tell your supervisors and managers to encourage their direct reports to share thoughts, suggestions, and innovations....

Strategy can seem like a foreign word for entrepreneurs that are just getting their businesses off the ground. However, if you neglect to create a plan as your organization matures, you may find your ability to sustain growth is stymied by a lack of direction and clear goals. More companies are realizing the importance of strategy to their survival, and are creating an internal role that seeks to ensure the function receives the resources it needs. I ...

When you think about the structure of your business, how do you arrange the various positions that your employees hold? Have you allowed them to dictate their place in the business in the past, essentially having them "create their own roles"? As you try to create new responsibilities or add more jobs to your organization, resist the common approach of retrofitting the organization. Rather than attempting to tactically fill positions based on your...

For far too many financial advisors, it may feel as if they spend more time wrapped up in small details such as answering email and managing an office to focus on the real work of building their businesses and establishing client capital. Tying yourself up with unimportant but easy tasks is often a tactic - unconscious or deliberate - to procrastinate on tackling more difficult or challenging responsibilities. As we enter a new year, it is important to consider...

What makes being a  business builder , considering all the stress, long hours and headaches associated with the job, worth it? At least partially, it is the freedom and ability to define the role you want to play in your own company. Although your primary focus at first may be getting your organization off the ground, you will need to gradually extrapolate yourself from the lower-stratum, day-to-day duties in order to dedicate more time to the business...

I have been building up to a discussion on stratum work capabilities. The intent is to illustrate how professionals work at different levels of effectiveness based upon their capacity to exercise judgment. Based upon this model, you will be able to discern how effective you and others are in applying judgment in a role. The level we start with is called “Stratum-I”, but capacity starts at a much lower level. The “I” in...

In my previous post, I described the usefulness of understanding  the level of complexity of work in a role, and the level of judgment capacity an employee, a supplier or a client has. In this piece, I describe a framework for understanding complexity in both of those areas.   Level of Complexity (Stratum) of Work   The TIME SPAN of a role is the intended length of the longest task in the role. If the...

In my last post, I described a four-part model of capability , the last piece of which was the capacity to exercise judgment. In this piece, I will tell you how this aspect of capability was discovered and why it’s significant. History About 60 years ago, Elliott Jaques, a social scientist, observed three different levels of relationship between an employee and their manager: The employee felt no added value from their manager. When...

Often, when a financial advisor finds they are too busy, the first thing they do is look for who is available and they hire someone they know or someone recommended by someone they know. Then they find out what that person can do and try to delegate that kind of work to their new employee. Unfortunately, what they can do may not include the kind of help the FA requires. In my previous post, Practical Job Descriptions, I took a different tack to...

Many professionals find it difficult to prepare and present an effective job description. However, if you are clear about the purpose of a role and what you expect of the person in the role, you will find that the most important information fits on one page and another one or two pages will give you everything you could need to outline a job description. The people who work with or for you want to know what is expected of them. To prepare an effective job...

Are you considering a new hire? Before moving forward, it is important to identify the kind of support you need in your office. Let’s divide the work that must be done for your success into three buckets. First, you need to consider the work you ought to; second, the work you ought not to do; and, third, everything else. First is the work you ought to do – or at least ought to seriously consider doing. This bucket itself contains several...

Are you feeling stretched? Like there aren’t enough hours in the day and you never have enough time to do the really important or really enjoyable work. I would like to offer three tactics to help you avoid such situations and then raise some questions that will help you find the support you need. 3 TACTICS 1.  Do not assume that you want to do this.  Many financial services professionals believe they must grow their business for...

Many financial advisors find it difficult to prepare and present an effective job description. However, if you are clear about the purpose of a role and what you expect of the person in the role, you will find that the most important information fits on one or two pages. The people who work with or for you want to know what is expected of them. The starting point is to be clear about the purpose of having a job description. I would suggest there are three...