I am just back from presenting “Scaling Up Your People for Growth” two times last week– one to a startup incubator and once for the Scaling Up Workshop in Niagara on the Lake with established growing companies. (Take a look below for a short summary of the “People” section from the book.)
One of the exercises we used at the workshop was for the owners/ founders to evaluate the “alignment” of their team.
“The leader’s final job is “to keep the main thing the main thing” — to keep the organization on message and everyone heading in the same direction” -Verne Harnish, in his book “Scaling Up,”
Here is a list of questions you can use to evaluate the health and alignment of your team:
The executive team is “healthy” (no dysfunctional behaviors)
Everyone is aligned with the #1 thing that needs to be accomplished to move the company forward
Communication rhythm is established and information moves through the organization accurately and quickly
Every facet of the organization has a person assigned with accountability for ensuring goals are met
Ongoing employee input is collected to identify obstacles and opportunities
Reporting and analysis of Customer Feedback data is as frequent and accurate as financial data
Core Values and Purpose are “alive” in the organization *
Employees can accurately articulate the key components of the company’s strategy: Who are our core customers? What is our brand promises? Where does the company sees itself in 5 years? What is the company’s elevator pitch?
All employees can answer quantitatively whether they had a good day or week [“everyone has a number”]
The company’s plans and performance are visible to everyone
I am sure you have experienced the challenges when “one hand does not know what the other is doing” — and you know it is not the most effective way to run a team or a business.
–> So take a few minutes to rate your team on the 10 questions above, and see where you need to improve clarity, focus, and alignment for a healthy team and to achieve more success.
How is your business doing?Can you tell me if you are having a “good” year or a “bad” year?
If you can only check your bank balance or ask your accountant, you are flying blind… this is not enough information to make good decisions and evaluate what is working and what to change.
You may have heard of “Key Performance Indicators” or metrics, so let me tell you why I highly recommend that every business track these on a simple one-page document called a “dashboard.”
8 Benefits of a Dashboard for Your Business
1. Visibility: The new field of “Business Intelligence” or BI shows that the more you measure in your business the more you can improve. What is measured becomes a higher priority and gives you a tangible target to improve.
2. Maintain quality during growth: If your business is growing, you need to make sure that you are maintaining the quality and customer experience standards and your team are not burning out.
3. Alerts before systems break: When you track leading indicators, you can see issues coming before they happen. For example, if you track pending orders you might see that your current production schedule can’t handle the order volume and will be backlogged by two weeks. Dashboards can alert you to this before chaos ensues.
4. Less stress: When you have a dashboard, you can get timely and accurate data on your business health, compared to your targeted goals and to historical trends. This will allow owners and general managers to feel more comfortable letting go of responsibilities while knowing they are “watching the store” and things are running smoothly.
5. The basis for accountability: How do you know your managers are doing their job? Easy, just check their department dashboards. Where do they need more coaching? — you will see a lack of improvement or a drop in their key numbers to let you know there is an area to discuss and determine the root cause. This ongoing process improvement conversation increases the business knowledge and the decision-making competencies of your managers.
6. Data to make/evaluate decisions: Did that marketing campaign or new training program yield positive business results? If you see improvement in your dashboard numbers, you can see if a project was successful.
7. Creates ownership thinking and alignment: This is especially true when business dashboard metrics “cascade” down to departments and to individuals. Employees and managers start to understand what they can do to increase revenue and customer service and efficiency or reduce costs.
8. Improves revenue, productivity, margins, profits, and teamwork. As you can see from the list above, focus and clarity around what is important to drive business value and improve your value to customers will only improve your financial results and operational capacity.
These are not just a “report card” or your income statement from last month– they are far more powerful as they look under the hood at the engine and other moving parts of your business.
Implementing dashboards and management review and planning around the data can be the foundation of high functioning, profitable and growing organization.
“That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.” Karl Pearson
If you want to find out how dashboards can be the foundation of your business management and team coaching, you can read the rest of the process in myGuide to Coach Your Team for Accountability & Performance.
Download here: “Guide to Coaching for Accountability & Performance”
“More companies die from indigestion than starvation.” – Dave Packard, Hewlett Packard
You might be surprised to know that I speak to business owners every month who want to grow 25% next year, but they don’t have a plan to get the sales or handle the extra work.
According to Scaling Up by Verne Harnish, these are 3 warning signs that you aren’t ready for more sales:
Your profits are at or below the industry average [or you don’t know what that is]
Processes are not running smoothly now
There is drama on the team or from customers from missed deadlines, increasing mistakes, lack of resources, and “communication” issues
People are working overtime to fix problems
At the very time when the focus becomes more important, your key people start being “too busy” putting out fires to work “on” the business.
Maybe you are doing this too— getting dragged into daily work instead of setting aside time to evaluate, plan and work on the key projects that will improve the business.
What is the solution?
Thousands of businesses have adopted the “10 Rockefeller Habits” as outlined in Vernes’ book “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” (and now updated in his recent book, Scaling Up.)
If you want to “grow” your business 20% or more in the next year… what is your plan to make it happen?
Do you have an achievable sales plan? Great!
Now:
What about a People Plan to handle the additional work and keep your customers happy?
Are you planning any changes to your process or technology to be more efficient?
Do you have a plan to handle the increased cash needs that always come with growth?
Most companies focus on the sales side of growth and just let the People and Operations side just figure itself out… this approach causes the “growing pains.”
You might be surprised to know that I speak to business owners every month who want to grow 20% next year, but they don’t have a plan to get the sales and/or handle the extra work.
“More companies die from indigestion than starvation.” – Dave Packard, Hewlett Packard
According to the book “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish, these are 4 warning signs that you aren’t ready for more sales:
Your profits are at or below the industry average [or you don’t know what that is]
Processes are not running smoothly now
There is drama on the team or from customers from missed deadlines, increasing mistakes, lack of resources, and “communication” issues
People are working overtime to fix problems
At the very time when the focus becomes more important, your key people start being “too busy” putting out fires to work “on” the business.
Maybe you are doing this too…
Getting dragged into daily work instead of setting aside time to evaluate, plan and work on the key projects that will improve the business.
A few real-life examples:
I spoke with three business owners this week who are living this right now.
One almost doubled the revenue but the profits plummeted.
another doesn’t have the hourly staff in place to handle several new clients so she is filling in and training $12 an hour staff.
A third added more customers but one technician team “burned out” and quit… now he is back in the field and everyone is working 50+ hours handling the overload, and revenues are down 20% and profits are zero. Ouch!
What is the solution?
Build the 4 Foundations to Scale Up– Strategy 6 People + Execution + Cash– all TOGETHER.
Changes to one of these four impacts the other 3– so you need to look at the “whole picture” of your business.
[from “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish- graphic from book summary by Readingraphics]
It’s a candidates’ market … 50-90% of small businesses report “few or no qualified applicants” apply to their advertising [NFIB December 2018].
Yes we get it– highest employment in
the US in decades, lowest unemployment rates, 30 million shortage in skilled
workers.
That means that you have to adapt to
the current economic realities AND compete with larger employers with your
hiring practices.
It is highly likely that your
recruiting and selection process is not adapted to the attract and convert many
potential applicants into a few qualified candidates.
Here are 21 questions you can use to
compare your hiring process to the best practices of mid-size and big
employers:
Quick Self Review of Your Recruiting & Selection
System [hint, the best answer is YES to every one]
We have 10+ qualified applicants when we run post a job
We continually recruit for entry job to build a future bench
We have tried all the free and low-cost job boards that are relevant to our industry/ area
Our job postings include minimum qualifications and appealing / realistic details about the job and company
We direct job postings to a single Jobs page that shows our key job roles, company info, and starts the application process
Applications are saved to a central folder, archived for 2 years
We track the source of applicants and evaluate cost vs value
We have a simple way to track each applicant and their last stage in the selection process
We easily screen out unqualified or low-interest applicants
Our administrative team is responsible for initial candidate communication and screening based on establish criteria and respond promptly to applicants and inquiries
We have a short online application for people without a resume or for a “quick application†with further info requests
We have a single “jobs†email for inbound and outbound candidate communication
We have standard candidate communication templates based on the stage in the selection process
We contact candidates for a consistent phone interview prior to inviting to a personal / first interview
We have a simple skill test that is easy to administer in the application process before first interview
We have standard and competency-based interview questions prepared for the first interview and spend at least 60 minutes with qualified candidates
When relevant for the job, we conduct a criminal background check, drug screen or medical exam
We have qualified candidates to do a “realistic job preview” with another employee, or demonstration / role play
We ask candidates to set up 3 references calls to contacts at work numbers
We use personality / attitude assessments to determine job fit
The future manager is involved in the final selection process
If you need qualified People to maintain and grow your business in — you need to adapt quickly in this new hiring environment.
The companies with 100+ employees have the HR team and time to devote to poaching your employees as well as finding qualified applicants.
