I recently came across these words from J R D Tata, who is regarded as the doyen of industry in India. "If I have any merit, it is getting along with individuals according to their ways and characteristics. At times it involves suppressing yourself. It is painful but necessary. To be a leader, you have got to lead human beings with affection"

And in a separate event, a slide that stood out for me was the one that pointed out that for improving efficiencies you count on technical skills, for enhancing value you count on business skills and for bringing about transformation, you count on behavioral skills.

A leader cannot escape the need to develop high sensitivities toward the people he influences. Understanding their ways and characteristics, as Tata pointed out, is important. I would like to think that this is more about character than methodology. The golden rule that Jesus Christ laid down - "Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you" is an apt behavioral competence to build such character. And down that lane one soon starts to grapple with the paradox that a true leader is actually a servant.

Introduction of Performance management systems in Small and Medium businesses has often been contentious. While these businesses boast of loyalties promoted by trust and relationship, the challenge has been with infusing professionalism and objectivity. 

However, when accounting and bookkeeping or other corporate finance functions are smartsourced (The key to SmartSourcing: Team and Workflow Design) to ThomasandAlex, it presents a wonderful opportunity to introduce a highly objective system that focuses on throughput and productivity. The supersensitivity for cost and value has been set forever by the recession. Management by productivity and throughput becomes the key lever for regulating cost and value. This is an essential competitive advantage that small and medium businesses can no longer ignore. 

The productivity tracking system is set up together with the customer and pricing is calibrated to this system. From our experience we have found that it is best for the system to evolve through these stages. 

1. To keep the risks low initially for the customer, engagement begins with a dedicated resource on a full time or part-time equivalent basis
2. Workflow definitions are achieved and transition of processes to this accountant completes
3. A productivity system is set up for these processes. Throughput measures are outcome focussed and typical measures would be transaction volumes, quantity and type of documents  processed etc.
4. Baselines are marked for current processes as well as other potential processes that can be smartsourced. These are based on measurements agreed jointly with the customer.
5. From this point onwards, scalability of engagement is on the basis of productivity.