Business Building

"You are what you measure".  You have probably heard this so many times that it has faded into the background as a cliché that is more of a nice idea than strictly relevant to your daily business success.  But how can you or your people ever make progress towards a vital strategic goal or milestone unless you are measuring the appropriate things and know whether you are on course and making progress or not?

Ultimately you need to have one person make a decision and then ensure that it is followed through on by everyone else involved.  This requires giving the person not only the responsibility, but also the authority to make the decision and the power to effectively allocate resources to ensure that it gets done.

Businesses also need to review their compensation structures to make sure that they are truly rewarding the behavior that they profess to be seeking.

I have seen Clients where there are multiple owners of the business, and due to the legal and financial structure of the business, there is no clear leader.  Hence all vital decisions get postponed, and watered down due to the concerns that a poor decision by a single owner will negatively impact the earnings of the rest.  Trust, support, long term goals and true teamwork (where the roles and responsibilities are divided up appropriately) are lacking in these instances.  Treading water in this way only exhausts the business long term, and makes it vulnerable to the various tides and currents that exist in the marketplace.

Appoint a leader, then follow and support them.  Be In Action, people!

This topic is far from a no brainer.  Like you, most business owners will agree that, in order to truly succeed in today's business environment, small and medium businesses need to have a culture that excels at "execution".

In reality almost all of them have no direct experience of about how to go about creating this.  It exists mainly in the "I'll know it when I see it" realm.  So there exists a significant chasm between the concept and the reality.

How can you tell if this is lacking in your business?  Well, you will notice a tendency to have and announce great plans and initiatives, but then, a while later everything is pretty much as it has always been - everyone is in the day-to-day survival mode and reaction driven habits that has the business get by, but there is rarely any significant progress made towards critical goals.  Maintenance mode and fighting fires is all very well, but growth - whilst more challenging - is so much more fulfilling for all concerned.