Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2014 | Page 22

Grow Market Lead
20

The focused
ceo
BY KEITH GERSON

The 12 Elements

Keeping franchisees satisfied and engaged

I

’ve made a personal commitment
to remain relevant in this everchanging world of franchising.
That’s why I have at least one book
in front of me at all times with a focus on
how to create smarter franchise systems.
To that end, I’ve discovered an excellent
book on creating engagement and driving execution called 12: The Elements of
Great Managing by Rodd Wagner and
James Harter, the sequel to the 1999
best-seller First, Break All the Rules (by
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman).
The authors present a study of how great
managers harness employee engagement,
along with a number of case studies tied
to turning around failing or struggling
enterprises and how they were able to
make significant improvements.
In reading this book, it wasn’t too
difficult to draw a direct correlation between franchisee performance issues and
the findings from the landmark study of
10 million-plus employees and managers
who were included in this Gallup Survey
on engagement. I’ve taken the liberty of
adapting the “12 Elements” into a simple
assessment allowing for a truthful internal
review as to how well your franchisees
would score your organization in these
areas, said to be the highest indicators
of franchisee satisfaction.
1) I know what is expected of me
in my franchise system. The survey’s
results showed substantial gains attributed to the First Element alone, which
were often correlated with productivity
gains of 5 to 10 percent, and thousands
more happy customers. Franchise survey data I’ve previously published shows
this as an area needing attention by executive management as 46 percent of
surveyed CEOs lack strategic plans in
writing that are shared with franchisees, and 25 percent do not have core
values, mission, and vision statements
Franchiseupdate ISS U E IV, 2 0 1 4

in writing, nor are they shared. Many
of the reasons that “high reliability organizations” perform so well revolves
around each team member’s understanding of what is expected of them
and understanding how what they do
complements the work of the rest of
the franchise system.
2) I have the materials and equipment I need to carry out my role
as a franchisee. Of the 12 Elements,
whether a person has the materials and
equipment needed to do their work well
is H