Take Your Company's Pulse
So, let's start at the beginning. I want you to think of your company as if it is one living organism. It's the thing we use to get from one place to another, but it's way bigger than our bodies!
It's easy to think of our bodies delivering us from one place to another, isn't it? Its actually all we have. But if you've set your mind on your business delivering you to success, happiness, joy, or security, then you must tend it well.
The action of thinking about your company in a different way, and seeing the parts that are contained within it, will expose that every employee needs to be working at their full - or close to full - potential. Bringing this particular "human" construct into operational excellence is a delicate two-step.
To focus on the employees within the structure is limited. But today, that's what we'll focus on while recognizing there are a multitude of systems and checks that move a company forward - but none of them are as important as the people that:
- innovate and energize the organism
- interact and care for customers who love the organism
- implement production and development strengthening the organism, and
- inspire each other and the external world, with pride...
This is about social intelligence. Not about margins or spreadsheets. This is about the foundational piece that drives just about every action within your business. The beauty of this is that numbers can be tracked. Numbers will tell the story. Numbers can be shifted up or down.The numbers will tell the story...but the numbers ARE NOT THE STORY.
What I'm talking about is the actions and behaviors that drive those numbers and determining whether or not the "drivers" are operating at the healthiest level possible. If those relationships and behaviors are in sync with the business' desire to deliver you to success, happiness, joy, security, and the like; then all will be well.
There's no disputing that the majority of employees want to have a hand in carrying the business forward - none! Unless they are disengaged. There are tons of surveys that demonstrate when employees are operating at their highest potential, revenue increases - by almost 47%! Think about that. What would your revenue be if it increased even 23%?! Does it make sense to get your people on board?
Other studies show that when the people within the structure of the company organism are happy and engaged, there will be significantly favorable stats around customer service, employee retention and employee engagement on a daily basis. So, how do you develop that organism to play at peak performance? How do you conduct yourself to lead this entity?When we talk about vision, mission and strategy, it usually becomes a conversation focused on gaining something external. But in reality the way to drive that external activity is from the inside of each single entity within the organism. Every component can know (or learn) exactly what do, as clearly as our blood cells do.A team moves swiftly to execute the next big idea that comes from the CEO. She won't take 'no' for an answer. The CEO has a finger on the pulse of the customers. Right? The CEO has a finger on the pulse of the market. No? The CEO is the leader, she says 'go' and we WANT to go.
The finance guy's whole focus will be controlling the budget and making sure every step of the way stays in budget. Even though he knows the budget is too large. The sales guy, the executioner in the best sense of the word, is focused on selling the idea to the customers, and dissolving the objections they may bring. The sales teams must turn this idea into money. The marketing people, the creative group, must feed the sales team. They can pretty much do anything with any idea that comes to them. They're good, but in this instance they are shifting gears swiftly and quite possibly moving away from the reason the organism exists in the first place.
Does this injection of newness ultimately serve to enhance the company's health? Has it created flexibility and strength? Or has it pulled a muscle by quickly jerking in a direction that it wasn't quite ready for? Or does the organism thrive? The employees will know.