The source of execution risk
A big part of your job as a leader is to understand and deal with the execution risks within your own organization.
There are lots of drivers of business risk that have to do with external forces…
But execution risk in your organization comes from your people not working the way the business needs them to be working — which you can impact.
The Value of People
This is why I never understand when some business leaders see their people more as an expense to manage down, than an asset to build up…Or when they think people-oriented initiatives do not have a hard ROI.
Successful, growing people, build successful growing businesses.
I never saw the investment in people as a nice to have or a soft business driver.
I believe growing your people is as powerful a driver of profitable business growth as any other lever in your strategy.
Recession oriented thinking…
Someone recently said to me, “In a recession, companies don’t have to care about their employees.” Indeed, I am seeing this.
Because employees are feeling quite beaten down these days, with increasing workloads and worries, and less care and feeding from above, some explicit focus on employees can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line right now.
No Kumbaya Required
I’m not talking about over hiring or over paying…I’m not talking about touchy-feely team building that is not connected to the business…And I’m not talking about weak, overly consensus-driven, everyone-gets-a-say-about-everything-all-the-time management practices.
I’m talking about paying market value for talent, but treating people above market – in ways that matter to them as humans, AND that drive the business forward.
The Hard ROI on People
I have led several business turn-arounds, where by definition, we were not awash in funds. But in each case, I was able to get the people who remained with the business to personally care about what we were doing, and to personally invest in the success of the new plan.
A big part of the success came how we treated the employees.
We delivered growing revenue, and growing profits each time.
We did this because the whole team got on board, they were highly aligned to what needed to be done and why, and were motivated to contribute above and beyond their job description.
Remind me again, why is that not a hard ROI?
Why do business leaders think that they can do better for the bottom line by treating their employees like crap and/or interchangeable cogs?
How to reduce execution risk
This is at the core of the work I do with executive teams — identifying and fixing obstacles to execution, by helping get more of their people doing what the business needs them to do, in a more productive way.
Below I have outlined several ideas of things we implemented — things you can do to get your whole organization successfully executing difficult change.
In the coming weeks, I am going to write an article on each one of these, but just to give you a place to start, I’ll list them here today…
Motivation plus hard ROI…
Note all of these increase motivation, (and decrease employee’s anger and resentment), but it you think motivation is a soft or not-critical measure, I have noted a hard ROI for each one as well.
1. Uncertainty is expensive!
Uncertainty causes people to wait for decisions instead of working.
People don’t know exactly what to work on, so they don’t do as much work…Or they work on the wrong things. It is your job as a leader to remove uncertainty.
ROI: More of the right work gets done. You build value. You go faster. More deals close. Less time is wasted.
2. Resolve persistent strategic questions and disagreements
This is a specific version of #1, but just know that the longer you don’t provide answers, the more people either are not working at all, or are working in ways that conflict one another…
You are sending mixed messages to the market.
If these decisions are hard for you as the leader, why are you expecting every front line individual employee to answer them on their own every day?
ROI: More powerful, clear, consistent messages to customers, partners and sales (more sales), Less internal conflict and competition, Less sales stalls and losses (more horsepower on selling, weakened competition)
3. Create Meaning
People want to feel like their work matters.
Make the big picture clear.
Don’t expect your staff to automatically see how their work fits into supporting the big picture. You need to spell it out and show them why their work matters.
The more employees who understand and care about the big picture, the more employees who can make decisions and innovate in ways that contribute value or reduce costs.
ROI: More higher quality work, more innovation on revenue and cost, less time in needless clarification.
4. Maximize Potential
Career development often falls first to HR and is then cut from the budget entirely.
The core of career development is to help each employee at every level understand their strengths and get them in a job that is a good fit where they can thrive and step up.
It’s a huge expense to have people in the wrong jobs.
They are not thriving, so they are not productive, and they are taking up a spot for someone who could be thriving in that role.
ROI: More productive individuals, more higher value work done, more bench strength.
5. Recognition
The issue is not typically that executives meanly refuse or withhold Thank You’s, it’s that they don’t have a system to recognize when something exceptional has been done, that someone deserves to be thanked for.
Set up a recognition process and culture, and involve the whole leadership team.
ROI: OK. So this one is about Motivation, but I can tell you for sure, that if one employee thinks, “Wow, the company really values me”, it makes them and everyone around them more productive.
6. Communication
Most organizations fail to communicate enough. Once you do 1-5 above, communicate about it every day, every chance you get.
You should be tired of discussing your Ruthless Priorities and your core messages.
Not until everyone is sick of hearing about it, and you almost can’t bear to say it again, is it beginning to stick with the organization at large.
ROI: Huge decrease in wasted time for endless clarifications, email debates, and re-visiting decisions over and over again. (Stick to your plan. Go faster.)
Hard ROI *IS* Personal
The trick is that since you are asking a personal investment of your employees to step up, they require a personal investment on your part.
As a leader, you can’t delegate this stuff. You need to engage personally.
It’s worth it.
Things you can do right now:
1. Stay tuned in the next weeks for articles with more ideas on each of these topics.
2. If this was a forward, you can subscribe to get your own copy of this blog each week.
3. To discuss how I work with business leaders on implementing these practices contact me.
