Business Owner Newsletter - 2016 Archive

"Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision." - Peter Drucker   With the final weeks of 2016 upon us, we want to congratulate all of you for making that courageous decision to own a business. Whether you just became a business owner or have been...

What? Who? How? When? Where? As you ask these questions, you are most likely requesting specifics about a person, place, or thing. However, when you ask "why" you are seeking reason, thought, and insight. "Why" is a powerful question that makes the recipient take a moment to articulate their perception of the question. At times it may make them uncomfortable, or dig deep into their minds for the answer. The answer to a "why" question is often subjective based on the person's experiences and values. 
 

When you are ready to involve your team in discussing metrics it's important to look at and understand the language that you will use to introduce the concept to your employees. Sure, setting metrics is nothing new, but if handled wrong it can create the wrong mindset with employees. 

We once overheard a client referring to Quantification as that 14 letter word. It made us laugh, because we've also felt the pain of trying to decide how and when to quantify results. It seems simple enough, but the truth is sometimes it's a struggle. This month we've been discussing the importance of metrics to a position and we've mentioned the need to track metrics in the last insight, but it's important enough to dive deeper.

Quote: "A good leader should focus on making sure everyone is being given the tools to do their job, not just expecting - poof! - that they're going to produce great work." Anne Sweeney

If  you followed along last week, you've made your "nice" list or rather the list of metrics that you will use in order to evaluate the performance of an employee. This week we're going to discuss checking that list twice. Here's the thing about metrics; they have to be set-up correctly or the results will absolutely fail.

"He's making a list, and checking it twice; Gonna find out who's naughty and nice." J. Fred Coots, Henry Gillespie

As business development experts we are systems junkies! There is nothing we love more than working with our clients to design a new system or getting to the bottom of why an existing system doesn't work and then helping to redesign it. Ideally, businesses are full of documented work systems and people are using those systems to achieve predictable consistent results. This might lead one to think that when all systems are in place the business is set, right? That would be true only if businesses are stagnate. But as you know businesses are not stagnate... they are dynamic... they are constantly changing. 

 "Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting." W. Edwards Deming

Last week we started exploring systems beyond the electronic programs and applications your business relies on. We expanded your point of view that your business is run on different kinds of systems. Everything that happens in your business is based on a system. This week we want to challenge you to explore the degree to which your business is at risk as a result of not owning the systems being used to achieve results.