GETTING STARTED ON THE ROAD TO YOUR BUSINESS VICTORY
Today’s business world provides
many challenges. It was not too long ago many organizations were striving to
manage growth. Now many organizations are faced with continuing to exist in the
current economic environment.
Before
starting any business improvement effort, there must be a business reason that
everyone in the organization can rally around. This is the focus. Focusing is a
critical basic business principle, especially in current business environment.
Now, you have the opportunity to focus the organization around a common cause to
engage the minds and the hearts of the people in the organization. This is not
the same as the vision or mission of the organization. The focus statement
should be aligned with the mission and vision. The vision and mission should be
long-term while the focus should be short-term. Depending on the situation of
the business, the focus could be six months to a year. The focus should be
written as a clear, concise statement. The focus statement should convey a sense
of urgency and purpose. The focus statement should consider the following: (1)
what is our business? (2) who are our customers? (3) what is our value to our
customers? (4) what are our strengths in relation to our competition (5) what
should our business be?
Once the organization has a focus,
it is essential to ensure the focus becomes a reality by getting the people in
the organization to make it happen. Therefore, organization becomes another
basic business principle for success. Who will lead the effort? Who are the
champions required for success? What organizational structure should be used?
Should teams be formed? If so, what kind of teams? What kind of support do you
need? Can you do it alone using only organizational resources? Where can you get
support from outside the organization?
Now the question remains “how
are you doing to do it?” This leads to a third basic business principle of
using a specific process. The organization must have a clear roadmap of how they
are going to get from where they are today to where they want to go in the
future. This series of articles will use the Customer + Leadership = VICTORY
model to achieve success. This is a proven, disciplined, systematic, integrated,
consistent approach for creating and maintaining high performing organizations.
In this approach, the customer or voice of the customer becomes the driver of
the organization. Using a variety
of methods, customers became integrated into the organization.
Leadership throughout the organization guides the success.
They help create a vision (V) that is customer driven.
They form teams that involve customers in creating win-win programs (I).
These customer programs become the driver for continuous improvement (C)
of processes, people and product. Development
of people through training, coaching, facilitating, educating and mentoring help
institute the customer’s voice throughout the organization (T).
By creating a win-win for organization and customers, people in the
organization embrace ownership for both the process and the results (O).
This ownership is fostered by a recognition and reward system that
motivates high individual performance and excellent organization results (R).
With success breeding more success, the leadership, the organization and
customers yearn for more victories (Y).
This leads to unprecedented benefits to the organization.
You certainly can get off to a
great start in your business improvement effort by getting a focus, becoming
organized, and having a discipline process. However in these times, you may be
swamped, overwhelmed or confused by the many challenges. You still may depend on
your own resources and try to do everything yourself. You make think you cannot
afford help. Although this may seem to make sense, you will not be as successful
as someone that gives attention to making sure the right things get done by
right people. By this I mean, tasks should be done by the very best people to
build the very best organization. You should capitalize on the strengths of the
people within the organization and ensure they as optimized their talents by
doing what they do best. In addition, you should get help for things that are
beyond the expertise of the organization. Further, you should consider
outsourcing tasks that do not make economic sense. In summary, business must
maximize performance in these economic times.
Game Plan for Getting Started on
the Road to Business VICTORY
1.
Decide what you want to do. (focus)
2.
Determine who will do it. (organization)
3.
Establish how to do it. (process)
This is the one in a series of
articles to help you achieve your business VICTORY. You can find a more
detailed “how to” workbook and worksheet to help you apply the information
to your specific organization by contacting emailing The Business Coach.