Employee Engagement: The New Leadership Advantage

Employee Engagement: The New Leadership Advantage

by | Nov 15, 2017

Small and medium-sized businesses are the life-blood of our economy, but they face specific, ever-increasing challenges. The world is in the mists of an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest challenges SME’s currently face is the attraction and retention of talent. Intelligent, honest, hard working staff are critical to an organisation’s ongoing success, but now more than ever, good people are hard to find – and they are even harder to hold on to! To ensure employee job fulfilment, loyalty and maximum ROI, the key ingredient that is so often missing is Engagement.

In a recent Gallup poll, it was revealed that only 8% of UK employees are engaged at work, and most disengaged employees would change employers right now for as little as a 5% pay increase.

  • The Engaged Employee – Does more than is expected. Works with a passion and feels a profound connection to the organisation they work for. They drive innovation and move the organisation forwards, providing maximum return on salary investment
  • The Disengaged Employee – Does just what’s expected. Is essentially there in body only. They’re sleep walking through their day. Marking time, but not energy or passion, into their work. They provide minimum return on salary investment
  • The Actively Disengaged Employee – Does less than expected. They aren’t happy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine the efforts of their engaged co-workers, often providing negative return on salary investment.

Many organisations believe that strong leadership, and an exclusive focus on the development of their leaders is the key to a winning culture. They are mistaken. Leadership is not the heart of your organisation. The heart of your organisation is its people and their contribution. Without actively engaged employees, the leadership message cannot be heard..

Trained leaders today have been overloaded with leadership knowledge and theory, but too often they are not sufficiently activated. We need to turn our attention equally to our staff, getting them actively engaged regularly through new, innovative and inclusive methods, thus creating shared vision and buy in. It’s called ‘leadership living’ and all levels of the organisation participate together in the workplace. It is an all action methodology, which means all team members will live, breathe and grow together as a united force. It breeds true engagement, uncovers more leaders and builds a powerful and united culture. To ensure maximum impact and lasting change, everyone needs to be involved and everyone needs to be accountable.

So how do we engage our staff, encouraging maximum productivity, loyalty and ROI? It starts with changing habits as a collective, creating a movement. It’s about working as a unified team to change everyone’s individual and collective behaviours. The only way you can do this is through structured, strategic and regular discussions built on shared ownership, individual empowerment, and regular feedback sessions.

Also, traditional hierarchy has to go. The traditional organisational structure is not the most efficient option for businesses in the 21st century. Instead, successful companies are moving to an organisational structure that allows employees to make more of their own decisions and avoid the rigidity of traditional models. Generations X, Y and Z respond and are motivated differently to Baby Boomers. Equality creates unity, and unity will bring the truth out in your organisation. Think of truth as the splinters that need to be removed from your business. It may hurt, but we need to hear it, otherwise the pain will continue and exacerbate. We need to create an atmosphere for the truth to be tabled discussed and addressed without judgement.

If you’d like to explore how to get your teams more engaged then lets have a conversation as I utilise cutting edge group activation systems to get team members engaged and the results are engagement levels increasing my over 200%, whilst simultaneously the company experiencing growth in productivity and profitability.

7 Personality Traits of Great Leaders

7 Personality Traits of Great Leaders

by | Nov 8, 2017

If you want to be a great leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Leadership is the great challenge of life.

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:

1. Learn to be strong but not impolite.

It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak.

We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully.

It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight on. You’ve got to seize the moment.

4. Learn to be humble but not timid.

You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It’s an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Humility is almost a God-like word—a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, an awareness of the human soul and spirit, an understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars.

5. Learn to be proud but not arrogant.

It takes pride to build your ambitions. It takes pride in your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It’s intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.

6. Learn to develop humor without folly.

In leadership, we learn that it’s OK to be witty but not silly; fun but not foolish.

7. Learn to deal in realities.

Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is—the whole drama of life. It’s fascinating.

Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. However, the fundamental skills of leadership can be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home.

This post originally appeared on SUCCESS.com.

Poor Workplace Culture = Poor Productivity

Poor Workplace Culture = Poor Productivity

by | Nov 1, 2017

Employee engagement is now the number one greatest issue businesses are faced with today. The world has an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.

Though companies and leaders worldwide recognise the advantages of engaging employees – and many have instituted surveys to measure engagement – employee engagement has barely budged in well over a decade.

Gallup has been tracking employee engagement in the U.S. since 2000. Though there have been some slight ebbs and flows, less than one-third of U.S employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces during these 15 years. According to Gallup Daily Tracking, 32% of employees in the U.S. are engaged – meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Worldwide, only 13% are engaged.

Gallup’s WorldPoll 2016 Survey is even more alarming as it reveals that the percentage of UK employees feeling engaged at work has plummeted to just 8%, down from 17% in 2012. In other words, about one in 12 British employees are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplaces. These employees psychologically “own” their work, helping move their organisations forward by driving performance and innovation. The bulk of employees in the U.K. –73% — are classified as “not engaged,” meaning they are psychologically unattached and putting little energy or passion into their work. The remaining 19% are “actively disengaged,” resentful that their workplace needs aren’t being met and likely to be acting out their unhappiness on the job.

There’s little doubt that the lack of intrinsic motivation signalled by low engagement scores affects labor productivity. Gallup researchers regularly conduct a “meta-analysis” of recent workplace studies to estimate the relationship between employee engagement and other conventional indicators of business health. The 2016 meta-analysis, which included more than 82,000 business units in 73 countries across 49 industries, found that units in the top one-fourth of engagement scores were 17% more productive and 21% more profitable than those in the bottom one-fourth.

Engaged employees help produce favourable business outcomes in many ways, including though higher retention rates, lower absenteeism and more positive relationships with customers and coworkers. They are more productive largely because they feel valued and well-supported by their organisations — particularly by their immediate managers — and their work aligns with their natural abilities and personal developmental goals.

On average, a fully engaged workforce has:

  • 22% higher profitability
  • 21% higher productivity
  • 10% higher customer engagement
  • Up to 65% lower staff turnover
  • 37% lower absenteeism

Great leaders realise that the key to improving engagement is to create an inspiring culture, share an inspiring vision and empower team members to contribute positively to the business. When employees feel listened to and valued and also share a passion for the business purpose then incredible things are possible. In my experience team members don’t thrive and contribute their best in a dictatorial environment. They need to feel ownership and take responsibility for their operations – and this is only possible when clear expectations are set and they are held accountable for their actions.

Great leaders understand the importance of consultation and coaching to get employees on board, whilst also acknowledging that they too must walk the talk. If you want your employees to be more engaged as a leader you need to be authentic, transparent and vulnerable. You need to go out of your way to build relationships with others and reward performance. At Engage and Grow we help companies activate 12 engagement keys to make this happen, and the results are typically increases in employee engagement levels of between 250-350% depending on the type and size of the business.

Wouldn’t you like that for your business? If so join me on Weds 22nd November when I will be hosting a free webinar on How To Make Every Team Member A Profit Centre For Your Business. It will radically change your views on the power of engagement and how creating a great business culture is imperative if you are to boost productivity and profitability.

The Power of Purpose To Increase Engagement

The Power of Purpose To Increase Engagement

by | Oct 26, 2017

Purpose has moved to the centre stage in business. It is the glue that keeps organisations aligned and in flow. It connects business owners and leaders with team members and ultimately their customers. It enables business growth as everyone knows what the business stands for and where it is heading. Team members and customers are attracted to businesses that are seeking to be change makers and make a real difference in the world, and so engagement levels increase. That’s the power of an Engaged Purpose.

Let’s be clear purpose is something more profound that corporate social responsibility (CSR). Purpose provides a road map and the opportunity to think much bigger about the impact you and your business are making in the world. It is about so much more than recycling, finding ethical suppliers or recognising the negative effect your business is having on the environment.

So what is an Engaged Purpose?

It is a written statement that clearly communicates to your team what your company does and why. It details the transformation you are trying to create. It provides a structure and framework that will inspire your team to align their daily activities with your company’s larger aspirations.

Purpose is often confused with vision and mission, but they are not the same. Visions, which can be defined as preparation for the future often tend to be factual and so don’t appeal to people’s emotions. Whilst missions tend to describe any work that we believe it is our duty to do. Many visions and missions are too broad in scope and so fail to resonate with team members.

A great purpose always answers the question Why. Why are we doing this? This question gets team members, customers and all the other business stakeholders to become engaged in the business. It motives them to find the answer to How the business achieves this solution. A compelling purpose touches the heart rather than the mind. It provides the road map where all stakeholders feel that they are making a contribution to the organisation’s success, and so fulfils Maslow’s third hierarchy of needs which is comradery and positive relationships

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Crafting Your Purpose

Mistake # 1. Written for the wrong audience.
Many purpose, mission or vision statements are written for the organisation’s customers. This is wrong. Most customers don’t care – they choose to deal with you for reasons other than some words about why you exist and what you do. The people who matter here are your team. Write your Purpose for them, to engage them, and Engaged Customers will become a by-product. (But do write it knowing that customers may read it, too.)

Mistake # 2. Disconnected from the team and confused with vision or mission.
Purpose should not be confused with vision – which can be defined as “preparation for the future,” or mission – which might be described as “any work we believe it is our duty to do.” Certainly both have value, as they are all crucial to your business’ growth and success. =In our experience, however, visions and missions often don’t fully resonate with the teams that are tasked with achieving them (see Mistake #1).

“Purpose-driven organisations are believed to have better results across a variety of measures, with 89% of participants saying they encourage greater employee satisfaction, 85% better customer advocacy and 81% higher quality products and services.”  – EY (formerly Ernst and Young)

Why an Engaged Purpose is Important?

In a study of employees at various companies, EY found that a staggering 87% of respondents believe companies perform better over time when they have a purpose that goes beyond profit. Additionally, EY found a great purpose resulted in:

• 85% BETTER CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
• 89% GREATER EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION (great news, if you’re looking to reduce staff turnover)
• 81%HIGHER QUALITY AND SERVICES

There was another standout figure: only 37% of respondents said their company’s business model and operations were well aligned with its purpose. Imagine what would be possible if more team members became aligned and engaged with the business purpose? Increased productivity, profitability, happier employees, more innovation and creativity and just some of the results.

If you’d like to learn more about The Power of Purpose To Ignite Extra-Ordinary Performance join me for a free workshop being held as part of York Business Week.

Are Busy Teams Really Productive?

Are Busy Teams Really Productive?

by | Sep 26, 2017

Are busy teams really productive?  This is something I often reflect on for both myself and my clients.  I know that in the past I have confused busyness with being productive but increasingly I have come to realise that they are not the same things.

As Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher notes “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”  A team or individual can be really busy but not productive, and so not achieve the results they were hoping for.  Just think about it. You can spend all morning on social media and clocked up hours in the office but have you really been productive and moved your business towards its goals.

Here are 5 ways to decide if you are being busy or productive:

1. How measurable are your goals? Everything you do should be aimed toward accomplishing something profitable. Clarify your goals with your team if they are confused about the current priorities. If you can’t tell how a team member’s daily activity moves you toward your goal in some way, it’s likely they are busy rather than productive. Always track the results of your efforts to reach your goals with easily readable metrics.

2. What tasks can you remove? Examine every task your team undertakes. Is it really necessary? If not, is it still productive or profitable? If it fails that test, it’s subject to elimination or severe streamlining. For a number of years, I created a monthly newsletter full of great content but I never bothered to ask you if you found it valuable.  Once I did I changed tact and now deliver you Wednesday Wisdom which is shorter and more concise.

3. How’s your Return on Investment? Does your team’s output consistently earn the organisation more than it pays all of you? If not, start honing your Personal ROI (PROI). Outsource tasks that people outside your team can do more effectively and less expensively, stop doing tasks below your pay-grades, and as a leader, don’t micromanage. Always look for a more productive or profitable alternative to every task. For example, I’m not an expert at building marketing funnels I could spend time figuring it out, but it’s not worth my time, versus a trained expert who can build in quickly and effectively.

4. Check your meeting meter. As you rise in leadership, you’ll be spending more time in meetings, because they represent your “work,” where decisions are being made. But they can definitely steal your time if you’re not careful. If a meeting doesn’t come with a purpose, an agenda, and decisions to be made, skip it. Leave at the promised end time. Encourage others to be brief and to the point with their concerns and comments.

5. Is your social media helping or hurting? Maybe social media represents the wave of the future, but it can be a huge timewaster. Is it even something that your team directly profits from using? Is it necessary for doing your job, such as marketing, PR, or HR? If not, skip it at work. Not everyone needs to be using Facebook pages and Twitter at work. Appoint someone to deal with it using the latest tools to maximise time use, or outsource it if you can do so less expensively.

6. Are you proactive or reactive? Do you and your team leap into action only when prodded, or do you review your strategy on a regular advance basis, so you constantly greet change with enthusiasm?

RESULTS RULE.

At the end of the day it all boils down to this: productive teams produce results. Busy teams produce more busywork. Unless you work for an organisation where results aren’t always immediately apparent, like an international charity, it shouldn’t take you more than five minutes to determine whether or not you and your team are productive.

Finally, as John Wooden, an American college basketball coach notes. “Don’t confuse activity with achievement.”
–

The Diamond Model of Leadership

The Diamond Model of Leadership

by | Sep 11, 2017

No-one I speak to disputes the fact that we live in a VUCA world full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. We are living in a world where change is ever greater, where the future is less predictable, where the options increase exponentially, and the way we think about these options has undoubtedly changed.

Today, leaders are inundated with huge amounts of information and need to make decisions faster than ever. However, there is no way that just one person can manage that volume of data. Increasingly organisations are realizing the power of shared leadership and collective teams to help them navigate this volatile marketplace.

Whilst many might think that the concept of Shared Leadership is a new phenomenon, the fact is that in nature animals have been applying the principles of shared leadership for literally millions of years.

Take a herd of horses for example. They have existed on this planet for over 45 million years, compared to the 6 million years that humans have inhabited the earth. They have learnt to be agile and adapt to their changing environments through sharing leadership and can teach us some key leadership skills to help us survive in these challenging times.

In a herd of horses, leadership is shared.

The lead mare sets the direction and pace of the herd. The lead stallion keeps the herd together and protects it from predators. Each member of the herd has a role in protecting the health of the herd. All of the horses in the herd contribute to the socialisation of new or young members, teaching them what behaviours are acceptable and correcting those who could behave in ways that could compromise the health of the herd. The overwhelming goal of the herd leadership is to create unity, harmony and collaboration whilst keeping the herd safe.

Safety is a key consideration for herd members because horses are prey animals, so they live under threat of attack every day. The herd leaders need to create and maintain what Simon Sinek refers to as a Circle of Safety. They need to foster an environment free of danger and give the herd members a sense of belonging, the power to make decisions and offering trust and empathy. And guess what that is what we need to do as leaders in the workplace too.

The Diamond Model of Leadership

Based on the principles of the herd the Diamond Model of Leadership, developed by June Gunter of Teaching Horse, aptly reveals that for horses to place their trust in their leaders, they must know four things about them. The same four things that our team members want to know about us.

  1. Attention – when leaders are paying attention they can detect even the most subtle shifts In the environment
  2. Direction – leaders give clear direction of how to respond to these shifts
  3. Energy – through assessing the situation leaders decide on the energy and pace required to respond to the situation
  4. Congruence – leaders display congruence of their inner and outer expressions and are aligned in your actions. Ultimately the herd members must know that the leaders have their best interests at heart, at all times, and are not acting in a self-serving manner.

Attention, Direction, Energy, Congruence: When leaders demonstrate these characteristics and skills the herd become confident in their leadership. And the bottom line is that confidence in the leader makes the herd agile in times of change.

Diamond-model-of-leadership

And the same is true for our teams in the workplace. To gain confidence, leaders must demonstrate they are paying attention to what is going on their organisation. They must be present and able to see the entire picture and what is happening. They need to quickly make decisions and give clear direction to the team with focused, inspiring energy that engages the team members to take action. Finally, leaders need to be authentic and have a clear, unambiguous intention that is trusted by the team. Leaders need to act from the perspective of “we” rather than “me”.

When these four attributes are present and aligned in leaders it inspires confidence in their leadership and makes the organisation agile to respond to the changing business environment.

And if you don’t believe me, I challenge you to go and experience Horse Assisted Leadership Transformation (HALT). If you don’t show up and pay attention, have clarity of direction, walk with purpose and be congruent in your actions, you will not be seen as an inspiring, compelling leader who the horse trusts and so he will not walk with you. But guess what, neither will your team members. They might not be so immediate in their feedback as the horse, but over time they will get disillusioned, lose trust and respect for you resulting in decreased productivity and profitability.

Interested and want to learn more, then connect with me and let’s have a powerful conversation. You can reach me at julia@businesshorsepower.com. I look forward to connecting with you.

10 Ways To Overcome Adversity

10 Ways To Overcome Adversity

by | Aug 30, 2017

It’s a fact of life that adversity happens but it is the way that we handle it that helps defines who we are and what type of person you are.  How do respond when things don’t go to plan?  Do you become dominant and aggressive, or do you disconnect from life and hide out?

We’ve all experienced difficult times in our work or home lives, often through events and circumstances outside our control. But like great trees, humans grow stronger when exposed to powerful winds. Here are 10 suggestions for dealing with the hard times when they happen.

1. Take responsibility. Assume an “I can do something” attitude rather than pointing fingers. If nothing else, you can control your own response to the situation.

2. Limit the focus. Don’t let the problem become all encompassing. When you compartmentalize the difficulty, you can focus on a workable solution.

3. Be optimistic. The ultimate belief in life as positive, even with hard-times and troubles, will result in positive behaviours and positive actions.

4. Think creatively. Approach the problem from new and different directions. Trust your creativity.

5. Have courage. Having courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It means that you don’t let the fear get in the way of doing what you need to do.

6. Take action. Handling the day-to-day details can keep you from getting bogged down in the mud of adversity. Determine what can be done, and do it.

7. Take the long-range view. Remember that “this too shall pass.” Recount other times when you have overcome challenges.

8. Maintain a sense of humour. Even in the darkest times, laughter can help ease the pain.

9. Get support. No need to do it alone. Ask for help.

10. Don’t quit. Persistence may be the greatest of human qualities that help us overcome adversity. Consider how water smoothes stones and wind sculpts cliffsides

I really hope these top tips on handling adversity help you, they have helped me no end.
5 Ways To Help Teams Perform At Their Best

5 Ways To Help Teams Perform At Their Best

by | Aug 23, 2017

I hope you have been having a great summer.  It’s been an interesting time here at Business HorsePower because the weather has tried to play havoc with some of my events. Like two weeks ago when I was running an evening event for 18 local business leaders.

A week before the event someone asked what we would do if it rained. Well I had never even considered that outcome. I’ve always held my events in our main outdoor arena, as quite frankly my small covered, round pen does not have the space to accommodate those numbers. And guess what. Just on cue it rained continuously all day.

Not unsurprisingly I had many calls from the attendees asking if the event was going ahead.  To be honest I did consider postponing the event, but then I thought, I need to model what I teach, which is being agile and leading through uncertainty. So with the help of some colleagues I got inventive and created seating and standing space around the round pen for 18 delegates with straw bales and horse rugs.

My horse team stepped up to the mark and delivered some amazing insights to my clients on how to deliver peak performance in what were challenging circumstances.

So this got me thinking and researching the latest scientific research on what really drives performance, and discovered the conditions necessary for teams to perform at their best.

  1. Find the purpose. People are more motivated when they can see why their work matters. That doesn’t mean every job needs a ‘worthy’ cause; whether it’s contributing to the team’s success or seeing others grow, help them find a reason to be proud.
  2. Make it difficult. No pain, no gain so the saying goes – while people may think they’ll be happier cruising, research shows that we’re happiest, and perform best, when tasks stretch us to the edge of our capabilities. So set the bar high.
  3. Pay attention. Knowing that someone will notice – and care – how they’re performing pushes people to improve. Observe your team in action and offer regular, informal feedback on what they’re doing well and how they could get better.
  4. Recognise growth. Feeling appreciated for who you are and being fairly recognised for great performance makes it worth the effort. That doesn’t mean big financial rewards; a personally motivating token of thanks goes a long way.
  5. Keep talking. A recent study tracked the financial performance of 40 companies. 63% of high-growth businesses reviewed employee performance more than annually, compared to 22% of those whose growth was low. Regular conversations are key to driving performance.

So are you using these high performance strategies in your business?.  Even if you don’t employ team members you can use these strategies to engage your suppliers and customers.

The 5 P’s of Success

The 5 P’s of Success

by | Aug 9, 2017

“Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance”

If you ask many business owners and leaders what creates success many will allude to the fact that planning is key, but this is just one of the 5 P’s of business success. Instinctively, many business owners also understand the concept of alignment but what does this really mean.  In my conversations with my clients they usually give one of the following definitions.

  • “our core purpose, values and mission are aligned with our goals” or
  • “our people understand our values and are aligned with our purpose.”

However, having an aligned business is much more complex than this. Its not just about purpose and people, although that is a great start. You need to ensure you have aligned the other P’s too. This is an area that far too many businesses overlook and yet it can have a massive impact on the ultimate success of the business.

So what are the 5 P’s that impact business today – and these are not the traditional 5 Marketing P’s espoused by Philip Kotler of product, price, place, promotion and people, but rather:

  • Purpose
  • Plans
  • People
  • Processes
  • Playground

Purpose: Few people will argue that having a clear purpose is imperative to a businesses’ success, but now more than ever team members and consumers are demanding that companies start walking the talk and recognise the impact they are having on the environment.

In a recent study by Cone Communications 70% of people consider the social and environmental impact when deciding where to work and 83% of millennials said they would be more loyal and work harder for a purpose driven organisation that is making a real difference in the world and where they feel they are making a contribution. Furthermore 87% of US consumers said they would rather purchase a product because a company advocated for an issue they cared about.

You can take the purpose test here to find out which of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals you are most closely aligned with

Plans: Having a great purpose that inspires and motivates is just the first step. This purpose then has to be translated into a vision, values and strategy that the entire team can get behind. The purpose will shape the strategy ensuring that the business only pursues activities that align and are congruent with its purpose.

A great example of this is Larry Merlo, the President and CEO of CVS Caremark, a chain of US pharmacy stores, who took the bold decision in 2014 to end the sale of cigarettes in more than 7,600 stores as the sale of tobacco products was inconsistent with the company’s purpose of helping people on their path to better health.

People: Richard Branson, Zappos, Unilever and Whole Foods are examples of companies that have made a solid commitment to focus on their purpose, and ensure that through hiring people for attitude rather than competence that they create a culture where the entire team is aligned with the values of the company. Zappos hold the mantra of Hire Slow, Fire Fast as they recognise that if a team member is not committed to their organisation they can be divisi, so the company would rather pay that team members a month’s salary to leave, rather then experience the problems that ensue from disgruntled and dis-engaged team members.

The people agenda, when not fully congruent, can derail the best strategic alignment plan. Do all the touch points of training – hiring, on-boarding, training, leadership development, continuing education – enable your company to fully achieve your goals? Are there areas where this is shortchanged? Will the full execution of your training plan realise your company mission?

Processes: In today’s VUCA world it is essential that business can act in an agile manner. This means that systems and processes need to be flexible to adapt to the myriad of changing situations that leaders and team members find themselves in.

Leaders need to ensure that the work processes and flowcharts are tied into the company purpose? For example, if your company wants to give the best customer experience, is every customer interaction streamlined, or are they bogged down with layers of checks and balances that hinder this goal? Check each and every process constantly to ensure that it works optimally like a well-oiled machine, and supports the team in achieving their goals, rather than hindering the process.

Playground: Playground is the term I use for the internal business environment made up of both the physical space and also the business culture. Do both of these aspects support the growth of the business aligned to its purpose? Is the culture in the business one of blame or do team members take responsibility and are they encouraged to make decisions?. In my experience when team members are working in fear of the consequences of what they do they fail to step up, take decisions and generally abdicate responsibility for what is happening. This can lead to silo group forming who consciously or unconsciously seek to derail the business for their own personal gain.

Getting all these 5 P’s aligned and congruent is imperative for the success for the business, and whilst when one or two are off a bit, the business can still flourish, it is my experience that a business never fully gets into flow until alignment has occurred in all these areas.

Take the analogy of driving a car. You can drive it when one or two of the wheels are misaligned, but the drive is not as smooth, it takes more effort and you use up more gasoline making driving the drive more expensive, both now and in the future.

There are considerable benefits of creating an aligned organisation, as you create a business where no time, energy or resources are wasted. And the result to the business are the 3 P’s of successful alignment:

  • Performance
  • Productivity
  • Profitability

and what business would not want to achieve that.

I encourage you to examine what areas of your businesses are mis-aligned and not supporting your company purpose, and then work on bringing them back into alignment.

And of course if you need any assistance please feel free to connect with me and lets have a conversation to explore what is possible for your business because the result of creating an aligned business is considerable and will help your business stand out above the rest.

Lessons From The Great Horse Manure Crisis

Lessons From The Great Horse Manure Crisis

by | Aug 2, 2017

The thing I love about summer is the weather and the fact that all the plants and flowers bloom. It makes gardens look amazing and the good weather also means all the fields that I can see from my office window are green and verdant.  Nature understands the seasons and that now is the time to start stocking up for winter. Animals start eating more so they have more body fat to keep them going through the winter. And my horses are no exception.  The poor girls – Bracken and Thistle – only have to look at a blade of grass and they pile on the weight, whereas with the boys – Toby and Charlie – it is a slower process.

Regardless, the challenge is that as they eat more they also create more manure, which means I have more to clear out of their field each day. Currently I have to clear two barrowloads for manure every 24 hours. Given that the horses are currently living on a steep hill, and love to be at the bottom of the hill, my abs are getting a great workout each day, as I push these full barrows of manure up the hill.

So what does horse manure have to do with business?. Actually quite a lot it seems because the The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 was the first big global urban crisis that the world’s largest cities faced in modern times.

By the late 1800’s London had over 50,000 horses moving cabs and buses every day. Each one produced 15 to 35 pounds of manure and 2 pints of urine daily. At the same time, New York had over 100,000 horses producing 2.5 million pounds of manure each day.  No one could figure out how to handle all this manure, and in 1894 the Times newspaper predicted based on the increase in population and horses at the time “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”

The crisis led to the very first International Urban Planning Conference in New York. However, it was abandoned after three days – instead of the scheduled ten – because none of the delegates could see any solution.

Many of today’s challenges look similarly insurmountable. Anyone looking at current trends and trying to battle the inertia, outdated policies or plain bad decisions of many bureaucracies, corporations and governments can easily lose hope

So what happened to end the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894?

Within a matter of years, the entire crisis simply disappeared. While officials looked unsuccessfully for solutions, Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and other inventors and entrepreneurs were creating the very first automobiles.  They were looking outside the box at solutions that the urban planners could not even consider possible.  After all who would have thought that cars would replace horses. That was such a preposterous idea.

Yet, by 1912, there were more cars than horses in London and New York, as it was cheaper to own a motor vehicle than a horse-drawn carriage and economics eventually ensured that horses were no longer central to the urban transport equation. In just over a decade the number of cars sold in the US rose from 4,192 per year in 1900 to 356,000 in 1912. By 1917, the last horse-drawn streetcar in New York had been retired. What was once thought to be an insurmountable threat to humanity’s existence vanished in little over a decade and the entire incident is now a barely remembered footnote in human history

 “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” ~ Albert Einstein

Of course – the age of fuel-driven vehicles has created a whole new set of problems. But today, new inventors and entrepreneurs in green energy, health, education and all areas of society are coming up with new solutions at an increasingly rapid rate.  In fact the biggest challenge for business today are the mavericks who are thinking outside the box and disrupting business. Just think Uber and Air BnB. Who would have thought that these two companies could completely change the face of the travel industry – and best of all they have done it without owning any assets!

There is no getting away from the fact the business is at a tipping point. The old structures are no longer serving us and as a business owner and leader you can either decide to focus at joining the groups protesting them or you can join the many who are already creating the new paradigms and be the change you want to see in the world.

What are you deciding?  Will you become a conscious entrepreneur who challenges the status quo and stands for something more, or will you shrink and play small, staying stuck in the old ways of doing things.  If the former, I’d love to hear from you as I specialise in helping leaders set out of their comfort zone to challenge the status quo and in doing so become a business pioneer.

 

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