Category: Vision

Six Keys to Business Success

The Six Keys to Business Success

Running a business can feel like herding cats at times, with so many priorities vying for your attention every hour of the workday. Yet as with most things, the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is something to keep in mind when making a conscientious decision on how to spend your time. Focus on those few things that will yield the greatest impact for your business.

  • Core Focus

The company WHY of who you are and where you are going must be clear not only with the CEO but across the entire organization. Every employee must have their personal Why defined. If an employee is not invested in where the company is going, their performance will slow the organization down. Some organizations call this Core Focus their Mission.

CEO Action Strategy: Host a team meeting to create and/or confirm the company vision and each employee’s as well.

 

  • Culture

The CEO is responsible for creating, exhibiting, and upholding the culture through defined Core Values created with the Leadership Team. All employees must understand the core values internally and externally adopt how they work together, with suppliers, clients, etc.

CEO Action Strategy: Do a survey of your employees asking their perception of the current company culture and how well the core values are implemented. Ask employees for involvement; create an employee committee to poll employees on how well the culture is reflected within the company and what the leadership team or employee committee can do to ensure the core values are implemented across the organization.

 

  • accountability

The CEO should ensemble a Leadership Team with department heads or division leaders to ensure the entire organization has balanced representation like the three-legged stool – Sales/Marketing, Operations, Finance (IT, HR, Admin, Accounting).

CEO Action Strategy: Meet weekly with the leadership team with a set agenda to celebrate successes, review the weekly business scorecard, review progress on strategic quarterly initiatives, discuss employee/client concerns and company issues, and hold each member accountable to follow-up agreed to by the team.

 

  • Leadership

CEOs must develop those around them in order for the company to grow; leadership team members need to continue to grow both individually and with each other or the company will “hit the ceiling” or outgrow its leaders. Utilize Assessments to help the leadership team understand and recognize their strengths and weaknesses and where the best use of their time is related to their “unique ability” – what they do really well – so they can help their direct reports do the same thing independently and together.

CEO Action Strategy:  Create a development plan in areas of soft skills and technical skills; hold each other accountable. Consider reading a leadership book and discussing the highlights together; some options include Good to Great, 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Traction, eMyth, etc.

 

  • Long-term Goals

The CEO must determine with the leadership team where the organization needs to be in five years, 10 years, or longer. This group needs to be able to plan, predict, and execute to end up where they want to go. This ensures the business can maximize market share and stay ahead of the competition, while also providing clients with what they need and opportunities for employees to learn and develop.

CEO Action Strategy: Set aside a full-day off-site meeting with the leadership team for strategy planning to determine the long-term goal of the organization; perform a SWOT Analysis in detail that will help identify the multitude of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the organization has to capitalize on. Determine what the strategic initiatives are that the leadership team needs to focus on every 90 days to reach the company’s long-term goal.

 

  • traction

The CEO and the leadership team must share the vision, long-term goal, how to get there, and what it means for the company and its employees to create buy-in and participation across the organization. This keeps everyone headed in the same direction and focused on the same goal.

CEO Action Strategy:  Host Quarterly Town Hall Meetings and share successes every 90 days with employees; remind everyone of the core focus, core values, mission, scorecard, trailing 12 months of financials, and refocus on the strategic initiatives for the next 90 days in order to reach your goals.

 

Remember that true leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders. Work with your leadership team to determine the main pillars of your business and then share them openly and often. When your employees know where the business is going and what’s in it for them, they are invested in the journey and the likelihood of reaching the destination together as an organization is infinitely higher. EOS®, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, provides clear concepts and practical tools to help take any business to the next level. Contact Christine Spray, a Certified EOS Implementer™, at [email protected] or 832-380-8224 or visit www.tractionforbusinesses.com to learn more.

 

About the Author:

Christine Spray is a nationally recognized business development keynote speaker, best-selling author three times, consultant, trainer, coach and Certified EOS Implementer™. Spray serves as a CEO and business advisor with a passion for helping people and companies grow.

 

Photo credit: © Roman Samborskyi | Dreamstime.com

Leadership Pt 4 – Create a Thriving Workplace

 

Create a Thriving Workplace

This fourth article concludes our Leadership in the Workplace series. To reiterate what is the foundation of this series – great leaders can indeed be made. By focusing on a few basic traits, it is possible to develop leaders who are the backbone of a strong business.

The previous articles addressed how to cultivate meaningful relationships, building trust, fostering positive workplace values, and coaching and motivating others. We wrap up the series with a trio of related topics to take your leadership skills from good to great – clarifying issues, conducting better meetings, and strategizing for improvement.

Leaders are responsible for creating and fostering the workplace environment. All the articles in this series address some aspect of crafting a positive, engaging, and fulfilling workplace. The leader’s role is to regularly set the stage for success through all the cycles a business naturally takes.

All businesses face issues, things that challenge forward progress toward the established goals. Leadership requires the ability and skill to address issues head-on as soon as they occur.

 

Clarify Issues

  1. Create a committee clearing house to identify, define, and prioritize team issues.
  2. Carry a small notebook to jot down information, opinions, and ideas you hear from the team.
  3. Identify a personal mentor or coach who you can meet with regularly to talk openly about leadership issues.
  4. Establish a feedback group to get insights into your leadership style and behavior.
  5. As you gather opinions and viewpoints on an issue, make sure you get a diversity of ideas from diverse people.
  6. Stop on occasion and identify those things that you feel are working well and those things that are causing stress.
  7. List the major issues that you have confronted over the last two years. Is there a pattern? Is there a type of issue that keeps emerging?
  8. Keep a log of the time it takes you to handle an issue. Determine if you are handling issues in a timely and efficient manner.

Meetings are what some might call a necessary evil. Yet meetings should not be the time suck they so often are in many businesses. Take disciplined steps to make meetings a better experience for all involved.

 

Conduct Better Meetings

  1. Develop a list of things that you can say to let meeting latecomers know that tardiness is unacceptable.
  2. Complete the following metaphor: “My style as a meeting facilitator is like ______.”
  3. At your next meeting tell the participants that you are working on one or two meeting facilitation skills. After the meeting ask the group how you did with each.  Ask for suggestions.
  4. Identify three to five adjectives that define your style as a meeting facilitator.  Then, ask selected team members to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a meeting facilitator.  Any Patterns? Similarities? Surprises?
  5. At your next meeting stop midway and ask the participants how the meeting is going.  Ask for suggestions to improve your meeting facilitation.
  6. Establish an assessment group and identify ways to keep meetings focused and on track.
  7. Make a list of ways to replace meetings with other forms of communication.

Leadership is the constant pursuit of excellence, making your business the best it can be for employees and customers.

 

Strategize for Improvement

  1. Work with a small group to create a “stop doing list.”  These are procedures, actions, or policies that are outdated, cumbersome, redundant, or annoying.
  2. Set a few minutes aside each day to reflect on how things are going professionally.  You may want to ask a few team members to reflect with you.
  3. Make a point to recognize team members who successfully implemented positive change.
  4. Make a list of procedures, functions, and/or policies.  With a committee of key players, grade each from A to F. Then talk about improvements.
  5. Make a point to talk to numerous team members one-on-one and ask them the following two questions: “What is quality?” and “How do we achieve quality?”  Take notes.
  6. Review your current process of delegating.  Then develop a list of guidelines for the delegation of tasks.  Ask yourself how you can do it more effectively.

I routinely work with the C-suite to develop leaders. While not all employees have the ability or desire to lead, leadership can be honed in those willing to pursue the greater good. Use these closing tips to constantly keep your company’s vision in mind.

  1. Hold informal “round tables” to discuss the future of your team.
  2. Keep a professional journal in which you focus on four aspects of visionary thinking: needs, wants, desires, and dreams.
  3. Write out the “best case” scenario for what you want your team to become.  Give it to your team and ask for responses and additions.

John C. Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership has so many concise and clear thoughts on leadership. This one sums up what has been addressed in this Leadership series. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

 

By Christine R. Spray

Photo: ID 134046195 © Fizkes | Dreamstime.com