Six Characteristics Of The Most Successful Businesses On The Planet
Most large companies never reach their potential; they do just enough to reach a stipulated rate of return on their investment
. And as owners of small to medium organisations, we can learn from their mistakes and achieve levels of business success way beyond what most think is possible.
Every business leader on the planet wants their company or business to grow and maximise its potential to generate sustainable value for all stakeholders; especially its owners.
The way to achieve that is not rocket science. Some people might argue that fact, but here's the reality. The actions and strategies to engage in for achieving success in business [at any level by the way] can be found on the web, in text books, and through studying and modeling the most successful companies that exist both inside and outside your industry.
Okay, so if that's true, then what's the problem?
The business world has evolved quite significantly over the past two decades. The shift we've experienced has resulted in six major problems arising that prevent you from realising your potential as a leader, and prevent you from realising your organisation's potential as a vehicle for creating stakeholder abundance.
Do you really want to make a difference? Do you really want to achieve a level of success in business beyond what most achieve. If you do, consider these for a moment.
1. Stop Managing Behaviour
The focus of behaviour management practices developed during the long gone industrial age was on controlling people. When the leash of control is placed on people today, the real talent and potential of individual employees is not realised.
People want to give their all, but if you ask them, my experience in dealing with thousands of people in public seminars has been that they will tell you they are underutilised. People have so much more to give and they know it.
With the choices available to every person in our society, and the willingness of people to move from one career path to another, leaders must shift their approach and create the situation where their people are totally committed to outcomes, they participate in innovation and continual improvement, and they have choices about the actions they take to get those outcomes.
Controlled people are only engaged to a level of compliance and never unleash their talent to its full extent.
This idea is perfectly encapsulated by Don Argus, retired Chairman of BHP Billiton, when he delivered a speech at the 2009 Leadership Victoria Dinner.
He said: "Marius [Kloppers - CEO of BHP Billiton] quickly realised many organisations smother the potential of their employees under layer upon layer of control and bureaucracy. As a result, their human assets are painfully underused ....
What is really being underused is what might be called peoples' discretionary effort, that is, performance above and beyond the expected minimum. It is their initiative, creativity, motivation and loyalty. This discretionary effort is the part of a person's performance that is liberated or shutdown by the way their leaders treat them and the quality of their work environment."
2. Reactive Psychology Underpins the Culture
Most people today live in reaction. So many demands are placed on them that they only work on their health when it is a problem, or their relationship when it starts to break down, or their wealth when they realise they are going to retire broke.
This subconscious pattern of reactivity becomes the underpinning factor of the culture of a business, and proactive growth will always be difficult to achieve. We consistently find that business owners and managers shift their focus to succession planning when they resign, or a supervisor focuses on waste elimination when a cost reduction initiative is rolled out, or an employee focuses on their safety only after a work mate is injured.
3. Movement without Direction
Busyness does not produce results, yet far too many people in every organisation are extremely busy but not moving towards any specific outcome of value.
The need to have direction permeate to the lowest levels of an organisation has never been greater, or more challenging to achieve. We have to work hard on breaking this deeply embedded busyness paradigm and focus on being more effective.
4. Compression of Time and Focus
With our maturity in the use of computers and modern technology, we now realise the two big lies told to us so many years ago. Do you remember what those lies were? We were told that technology would give us more time and make the paperless office a reality.
Technology is now compressing people's time and pre-computer time management methods are no longer relevant. Prioritisation and personal efficiency methods must now being replaced by a new generation in personal leadership techniques that suit the modern world, and result in time and focus expansion, and working at the appropriate level in an organisation.
5. Misaligned Systems Create Internal Competition
Systems that create internal competition limit the performance of any organisation. When the supply manager is driven to reduce the amount of stock she holds in order to minimise how much capital is tied up, and the production manager is continually frustrated by an inability to get parts from the store to get plant up and running again, the company will never reach its potential.
Does this happen in small enterprise? Of course it does. Without the appropriate knowledge and awareness, a business owner can unwittingly create misalignment in various areas of his or her business.
Our goal now is to align systems more effectively so they create a state of collaboration on how we execute the business plan and grow the business.
6. Low Trust and Accountability, High Bureaucracy
In multiple employee businesses, the first five problems all contribute to a situation where trust and accountability will be low, and leaders get drawn into situation of action and behaviour management.
The utilisation of bureaucratic methods to get things done underpins the way business meetings are conducted, how business leader to employee conversations occur and how upward reporting takes place.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF REMARKABLE ORGANISATIONS
The characteristics of the most remarkable organisations today reflect the successful elimination of these problems.
(1) Fully utilised talent and realised potential at the individual level
(2) Proactive improvement at work and at the home - a state of genuine work/life balance
(3) Alignment of direction and clearly understood purpose across the organisation
(4) Expanded time and focus, all supervisors and managers working at higher levels (less detail)
(5) Aligned systems that drive collaboration towards similar outcomes and mutually beneficial rewards
(6) High trust, high accountability and the elimination of bureaucracy
Can this be achieved in any organisation?
Of course it can - but not without change to the existing paradigms.
by: George Lee Sye
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