If everything is important, then nothing is.
Over my years in business and leadership in private $4M to public $4.5B companies, I have created, leveraged and evolved many strategies to drive organizational growth, build cohesive (leadership) teams and develop high performing World Class Organizations.
Key to leading teams and organizations to achieve consistent growth, profit and client success objectives is identifying a manageable number of disciplines that when institutionalized and operationalized have sustainable impact on the success of your business. They become the platform for a high performance culture.
While one could generate a list of seemingly infinite strategies, systems, processes and tools to manage and lead any business, what follows are 16 Disciplines that when leveraged consistently underpin highly successful World Class Organizations.
1. Create Clarity. Don’t just communicate annual goals and objectives. Vision, mission and strategies are often only embraced by the senior most leaders and stakeholders of organizations. They are important to have, communicate and publish. But, World Class Organizations are clear about the fundamental concepts that underpin the vision and strategies so that everyone across the organization has clarity on what is and isn’t important.
2. Put Clients First. If you don’t put your clients and customers first, somebody else will. Make a concerted effort to put your clients and customers above all else. Reach out and engage with at least one client each and every day.
4. Prospect, Close, Work the Funnel. In that order — prospect everyday. We live in a social and relationship world, so everyone is in client services and sales today – employ the organization in this discipline.
5. Develop Repeatable Processes. These should be honed and support scale.
6. Proactive Recruiting. This is an all the time thing that should never stop. Have a bench of recruits you can hire in 24 hours at all times.
7. Nurture Top Performers. Invest in A Players.
8. Time Management. Be sure your team uses their time wisely. Don’t underestimate the value of daily planning and time management through project, action and priority management vs. calendar management. Inspect what is expected. Human nature is to “respect what is inspected.”
9. Develop and Train. Provide non-stop opportunities for best-in-class training. Create a spirit of always-on learning. “Sharpen the saw.” “Groove the swing.”
10. High Value Networking. Proactive relationship management, own references and drive referrals to your business. “Give to get.”
11. Multi-channel Ecosystem. Continually invest in an influencer, supporter, buyer and partner relationship ecosystem to outflank the competition.
12. Proactive Performance Management. All the time. This never stops. Have robust rewards and recognition systems that your employees value personally and professionally.
13. Healthy Debate. Examination, involvement and respectful debate of strategies, top opportunities and organizational challenges. Welcome a difference of opinion. Craft the best strategies. Beware of team members who want to operate in a command and control, “We’ll do this ourselves,” autonomous silo.
14. Target and focus on Dream Big clients. Invest heavily and disproportionately until you compete for and win the business. Never give up. Stay focused. Less is more. War room your Dream Big progress regularly.
16. Expense Management. “You have to spend money to make money.” Ensure ROI form every dollar spent. Examine your top and bottom spenders.