“I have followed and led – I have failed and succeeded – Each time I learned something!”
Seeking to improve the performance of your business is a laudable objective. It’s not only laudable but essential to your longer term survival and prosperity.
As Leadership and Operational Performance Advisors, we believe that it is critical that you have a deep understanding and commitment to this list of shorter term priorities;
First and of utmost importance. Managing and Managers and Leading and Leadership are not the same. We support the belief that when Staff talk to Managers, they are sometimes left with the feeling that the Manager is important. When Staff talk to Leaders, they are often left with the feeling that they themselves are important.
If you build your organizational culture around a Leadership focussed – Management empowered approach to Operating your business, you are on track to improve your performance metrics.
If on the other hand you see room for improvement in how your Executive Team directs staff, we can help you to realign your priorities and infuse your organization with the thinking, planning and executional mindset that supports this approach to running your business.
Secondly it is critical to embrace and understand that “Good ideas aren’t adopted automatically. They have to be driven into practice with courageous patience” (Admiral Hyman Rickover) Work is hard. Success is harder! Don’t make the mistake of believing that good ideas in and of themselves, will yield positive Financial results without patience, planning, persistence, execution, and by surrounding yourself with committed and like-minded risk takers. Our strong conviction about this mindset has to be mirrored by your strong conviction. Let’s do an analysis of the Persistence Culture in your organization and then partner with you to make it better.
Thirdly you and your Team need to understand that the skills required to be an effective Strategic Planner are often different then the skills required to effectively Operationalize that Plan. The greatest Planning in the World is only as good as your ability to execute. Companies are often good at one thing but not the other. Let’s assess just where you and your Team fall on the “make it happen spectrum”. Fix this and your organizational performance goes way up.
Lastly, where are you on the credibility scale? Credibility with your workforce and credibility with your customer? Before you answer this question please understand that “Credibility isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being trusted” (Frank Figliuzzi)
Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
Do you follow through on your commitments?
Do you ever find yourself overpromising and under delivering?
So now what’s your answer?
Falling short on any one of these, risks also creating sub-par staff performance. After all, if the Boss doesn’t think trust is important, why would I? Worse than that, if you fall short on Customer Credibility, your medium and long term survival prospects are in jeopardy. Let’s do an Audit so that we are both starting from the same place!