The power building underneath the economy is slowly beginning to be felt. The underlying positives are lower interest rates, higher levels of monetary liquidity (a major positive), lower energy prices and marginally lower taxes.

To release this power, the critical ingredient is confidence, with its resulting willingness to borrow, invest and spend.

1. There are a few positive indicators in this regard:
   Auto sales picked up dramatically in October and November, as a result of bargain financing and leasing terms;
   
2. Year-end retail sales were relatively positive;
   
3. The collapse of Enron Corporation (the largest bankruptcy in history) and the financial collapse of Argentina have been taken in stride by investors;
   
4. Year-end consumer confidence measures have turned positive.

We still have some way to go, but remember bull markets and strong economics result from investors and consumers ignoring bad news. There are some positive indicators that were beginning to show at year-end. Have a prosperous New Year.

Tom Caldwell, Chairman, Caldwell Securities Ltd. - (416) 862-7755

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Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is an activity usually considered to be the domain of senior managers. But all managers need to think and act strategically so that they can influence the future. The steps you must take to develop a plan are set out below.

Step 1. Plan to Plan: Strategic planning is a slow, difficult process. Before you begin, ask yourself

• How much time you can devote to the process including research and documentation
  
• What support you will need from those above, below and your peers
  
• To what extent you are able to involve the people who must help you implement changes
  
• To what extent you want to involve those who can implement change
  
• What steps you will take to complete the plan
  
• What you will do with the plan when it is complete

Step 2. Develop Your Mission: Create a mission statement for your department's activities with confirmation from your team. Your mission should

• Be easily understood
  
• Reflect the interests of your internal and external clients
  
• Reflect what you can do with the resources you have
  
• Be specific enough to lead to goal setting
  
• Be general enough so that it will not date
  
• Circulate the mission to get feedback. Modify it to reflect a consensus of the opinions of those that will make it happen. Post the mission in a permanent place.

Step 3. Evaluate Your Present Position: Determine how effective you are by

• Looking at operating statistics to evaluate your costs, quality, responsiveness, morale, and health and safety
  
• Comparing yourself to others around you
  
• Conducting interviews one-on-one or in groups to find out what frustrates people when they deal with you, what infuriates them, how user-friendly customer services are, what policies prevent people from doing their best.

Step 4. Develop Indicators to Track Change in Performance: Working with your people, identify indicators to track your progress. Pick indicators in the categories of quality/service, timeliness/responsiveness, costs/value, health and safety, morale. Ensure that your chosen indicators relate specifically to your intentions outlined in your mission. The best indicators in each category will be those that are easy to collect, accurate, already being collected, measurable, something the team can influence.

Step 5. Set Goals: Set goals together with your associates. Your goals should be SMART: Specific - Measurable - Achievable - Realistic - Time specific. Post the goals and your current level of performance for everyone to see.

Step 6. Develop Plans for Improvement

• Develop specific plans to achieve goals with your people.
  
• List all actions, who will do them, and dates by when they will be done.
  
• Post plans in work area so everyone is aware of them.
  
• Identify milestones for longer range goals.

Step 7. Identify Major Threats and Remove Them

• Create a list of obstacles that will prevent you from meeting your goals. Prioritize them.
  
• Focus on key roadblocks that you do control. Develop specific actions to deal with them.
  
• Work with those outside of your work area to remove roadblocks you don't control.

Step 8. Scan Your Environment: Look outside of your work area for trends and changes that will affect you. Encourage your people to help identify real or potential changes in the environment by circulating articles of interest, attending conferences, visiting competitors, visiting customers.

Cy Charney, President of Charney & Associates Inc. (905-886-5606, www.askcharney.com ), is a leading Canadian management consultant focusing on organizational performance improvement. The above is an excerpt from his book, The Instant Manager, published by Stoddart.

Management is all about working through individuals and groups to accomplish organizational goals and objectives. To do this requires delegation. But everyone has an excuse for not delegating.

Here are some of the common ones:

• I don't know if I can trust her to do it.
  
• He isn't qualified to do it.
  
• She doesn't want any added responsibilities.
  
• I don't have the time to show anyone how to do it - I can do it faster.
  
• He already has enough to do - he doesn't want any more tasks.
  
• I like doing this, so I'm not going to give it up.
  
• I'm the only person who knows how to do this.
  
• She messed up last time, so I'm not giving her anything else to do.
  
• My employees aren't ready yet.
  
• I don't want to give someone a nasty job to do.

All of these statements are unfounded. There is someone else to delegate to, and they will do a good job, if you delegate properly. When you find yourself using the excuses above, ask yourself this: Do you enjoy challenging new assignments, increased opportunities and a chance to learn something new? Do you feel you're ready to take something else on? If you answered yes to these questions, chances are your employees would also answer yes.

Assume that most people want added responsibilities. (Don't you?)

Assume they are keen to learn and take on new tasks. They might even do a better job than you by developing an innovative methodology. If they're not entirely ready, they'll need some training and direction. That's a short-term investment that will pay off many times over the long term. So don't hold back from delegating.

Who can you delegate to?

Look around. Even though you're not the boss, there are people who will help if you approach them in the right way. For a sales person, this might be someone in the customer service department. For a self-employed researcher, it might be a spouse, child or a neighbor. Don't always give tasks to the strongest, most experienced or first available person. Development of people is one of the goals of delegation. Explain the benefits for those who will be accepting assignments. They may be looking for broader exposure, prestige, an opportunity to contribute new ideas or a chance to learn a new skill along the way. By spreading delegation around, you give people new experiences as part of their training.

What should you delegate?

Get help with routine activities such as fact-finding assignments, problem analysis, data collection, photocopying, printing, and travel arrangements. Delegate things that aren't part of your core competency. For small businesses, these include accounting, website design, deliveries, hardware upkeep, software help, graphic design, travel arrangements, patenting, legal issues and payroll. On the other hand, there are some activities that should not be delegated. Anything related to employee feedback, for instance, can't be delegated. You can't ask someone else to conduct a performance review, provide discipline or fire an employee.

Create a plan to delegate.

Don't give out assignments haphazardly. First, examine what you can eliminate. If you shouldn't be doing an activity, then perhaps you shouldn't be giving the activity away to others. Eliminate it. Then, delegate, but don't abdicate. Someone else can do the task, but you're still responsible for the completion of it, and for managing the delegation process. Ask yourself whether you'd be prepared to do it yourself. Have you done it in the past? This is a good test of whether it's appropriate to delegate something.

Communicate.

When you give someone an assignment, clearly communicate the standards for successful completion of tasks. Identify the quality level, timelines and input from others required. It's then the delegatee's job to determine how to meet the standards. So delegate the objective, not the procedure. Outline the desired results, not the methodology. Then ask, "Is there anything else you need to get started?" The delegatee will let you know if he or she needs more guidance, or even if a demonstration of your technique is needed. If not, you can leave the person on his or her own. Then set interim deadlines to see how things are going. Obtain feedback to ensure your delegatee feels she's being treated appropriately. A simple "How's it going with that new project?" should suffice. Only do a check up at the next benchmark step you've both agreed. Your subordinates will find a way to achieve the objective, and they may end up doing a better job than you. But be prepared to trade short-term errors for long-term results.

Trust.
Once they get going, trust people to do well and don't look over their shoulders or check up with them between updates, unless they ask. Give them the appropriate amount of independence by delegating authority along with the responsibility. Don't make people come back to you for too many minor approvals.

Praise and Feedback.
At the end, when the task has been completed, give them praise and feedback. Everyone likes to know they've done a job well. That's when you can also give them added responsibilities. Effective delegation saves you time, multiplies your efforts and builds your team. Delegation is an investment in your own future, as well as in your team's future. It takes time to prepare assignments, to communicate them to others and to train subordinates. But the long-term payoffs are a better use of your time and a stronger organization. Your time is worth it.

Mark Ellwood is a productivity consultant and trainer who specializes in measuring and improving how employees spend their time. His new book is entitled "Cut the Glut of E-Mail." Contact him at (416) 762-3453 or via www.GetMoreDone.com.

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by Doug MacLeod, Lawyer

Are disability payments received during the reasonable notice period deducted from wrongful dismissal damages?

In 1997, in a case called Sylvester the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") considered whether disability payments received by an employee during the reasonable notice period should be deducted from wrongful dismissal damages in a situation where the employer funded the disability plans.

The SCC concluded that the disability payments should be deducted from the wrongful dismissal damages. In coming to this conclusion the court looked at the contract of employment, and the intention of the parties. In particular, the court indicated that the contract did not contemplate the employee receiving both disability benefits and termination pay for two reasons. First, benefits were intended to be a substitute for salary, and second, because disability benefits were premised on the employee's inability to work, whereas termination pay was based on the employee's ability to work.

The SCC then went on to state that: "There may be cases where an employee will seek benefits in addition to damages for wrongful dismissal on the basis that the disability benefits are akin to benefits from a private insurance plan for which the employee has provided consideration."

Two recent cases decided by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2001 raise serious questions as to how the Sylvester case will be interpreted by trial judges in Ontario.

In a case called McNamara, the employer fired a 25-year employee while he was on sick leave. Mr. McNamara received disability benefits for about a year and a half and the employer argued that these disability benefits should be deducted from the 24-month wrongful dismissal award. As in the Sylvester case the employer paid the premiums for the long-term disability insurance.

The court in McNamara found that the disability payments came from the insurer as opposed to the employer. Mr. McNamara provided consideration for the disability payments by accepting a reduced salary, and inferred that the parties intended non-deductibility of disability benefits from damages for wrongful dismissal. Accordingly, Mr. McNamara was entitled to collect both disability payments and termination pay.

In a case called Sills the employer provided an employee with 12 months notice of termination. During this notice period, the employee became disabled and collected sick leave credits, short-term disability and long-term disability benefits. As in Sylvester and McNamara the employer paid the premiums for disability insurance. As a result of the existence of the disability plan, the employer's Employment Insurance premiums were reduced.

The court found this reduced EI obligation to represent an indirect contribution by the employee to the disability plan. The court also found that the employee would agree to accept a lower salary in consideration for the group benefit plan even though the court did not refer to any evidence of this intention.

In both the McNamara and Sills cases, the Court of Appeal inferred that the employer intended that an employee would receive both wrongful dismissal damages and disability payments - or double recovery - without referring to any evidence that the parties even considered this issue.

Accordingly, in situations where an employer pays the premiums for disability insurance the employer may be able to reduce the chances of a court awarding double recovery to an employee by including an express term in the benefit plan which states that the employer is entitled to deduct the value of disability payments received during the reasonable notice period from damages for wrongful dismissal. To provide additional evidence of the parties' intention on this issue the employer could also bring this term to the employee's attention at the time of hiring.

Doug MacLeod, Barrister & Solicitor. Doug advises employers on the intricacies of Ontario's employment laws. He can be reached at doug@dougmacleod.com (416) 977-9894 or (416) 977-7337 (fax).

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