Winning Business Leadership Principles – Let Us Help You Get There!
Embrace Servant Leadership Culture.
Rooted in trust, caring, personal accountability to timeless guiding principles, teamwork, excellence in serving/respecting others, transparency, developing capable business thinkers that are free/expected to innovate (see next section on Servant Leadership).
Set "Both/And” Expectations.
Set a “higher bar” that responsibly combines logical companion goals (e.g., product line sales growth accompanied by gross margin growth or increased finished goods inventory turns), to prevent singular goal focus from making it easy to “game” the system while negatively impacting an important aspect of business performance. For example, cost is truly minimized only when perfect “right first time” quality and customer order handling occurs. Financial return is maximized when assets are managed well while conducting robust, profitable sales and delivery activity. Sales only matter when they are delivered profitably with payment collected!
Executives Must Shoulder both Planning and Execution.
Thoughtful on-going participation in planning and in delivering the plan is non-negotiable. Blaming others after the fact is a lose-lose proposition. For example, those “estimating” projects must be accountable for upfront collaboration with those who must execute the projects, and both groups’ performance will be measured based on delivered results against the original estimate. Selling something that can’t be delivered profitably is an internal and external failure!
The Best Way to Ensure Strong Long-Term Performance is to Plan and Consistently Execute Strong Short-Term (i.e., monthly/quarterly) Performance.
Many elegant strategic plans gather dust, but a solid plan which has the buy-in of those who must team-up to execute it can produce successive winning short-term performances that combine to produce stellar long-term results!
Constantly Quantify the “Gap” vs. Perfect Execution to Drive Continuous Improvement.
Often the biggest strategic risk to a company is being blind to what new or newly inspired competitors see as a window of opportunity by being quicker, less costly, or more reliable. “Gaps” from theoretically perfect performance in each of these areas provides ample basis for continuous improvement efforts for all team members.
Work to Simplify Processes and Make Them Visual.
A fundamental “lean” precept, clear uninterrupted "value streams" are a key goal for most repetitive team activities. Relying on “black box” software to direct and control complicated processes ensures that this excessive cost and time are locked in. Don't institutionalize waste. It’s better to streamline and simplify before automating anything!
Tie Compensation Upside (i.e., Bonuses) to Business Upside Metrics.
This approach helps to build accountability, drive learning, fairly reward individual and team contributions, and reinforce meaningful alignment to the “Plan.” Those not engaged in producing incremental gains shouldn’t be blindly given incremental annual pay increases. Such environments struggle to retain top performers!
The Best Strategic Weapon is a Strong Balance Sheet.
Modest debt with healthy free cash flow is what often enables "strategic" companies to be timely and opportunistic in responding fully to market openings or by acquiring synergistic products and capabilities. Keep a strong balance sheet to maintain a strategically ready and opportunistic stance!