Businesses fail for a variety of reasons. Some just aren’t competitive or offer products that people don’t want. But others fail for preventable reasons. Many failures, and successes, are created by the type of organization that the owner creates. It is critical to craft a culture and workforce that is prepared to deal with uncertainty, can alter course with ease when necessary, is aligned with your strategy, and proactively works towards desired outcomes. An organization like this doesn’t created itself, but requires design and nurturing.
In order to develop a high-performing business organization, the following characteristics must be done well. While they seem intangible, they combine into a noticeable culture that makes for a powerfully performing business.
Imagine the Unimaginable. Foster creativity and imagination in your business and you’ll find new and unexpected solutions to problems, ideas for offerings, and any other particularly challenging situations you may face. Imagination allows people to break free of the past and the way “things have always been.” Our imagination is critical to innovating and developing solutions to new challenges.
Prepare, don’t plan. You can never develop a plan that will last beyond the first stage of execution. The world is too complex and changes too quickly for a plan to work as it was written. For an organization to achieve the goals that the plan was developed to accomplish, the people need to be prepared, capable, and adaptive. Your plan should have desired outcomes, resources available, constraints, etc. and provide as much information as possible so that the people tasked with executing the plan can adapt as necessary and with the speed and agility to stay in front of the competition.
Failing to try is a failure. Create a workforce that is encouraged to experiment, brainstorm, and try new solutions. Use the creativity that is inherent in all of your workers and empower them to create new ways of doing things. To do this effectively you’ll need to establish boundaries around resources and constraints as well as responsibility and authority.
Listen to your workers. Most plans, products, campaigns, etc. are created by a small group of leaders or specialists. Unfortunately, this leaves much of the expertise within your business without a voice. If you miss out on using their expertise, experience, and creativity in your business solutions, you’re missing out on a huge resource that you have in-house. One of the three critical gaps in executing strategy is plans that are unrealistic and this is frequently caused by ignoring the people that are going to be implementing plans who could have supplied input that might have prevented the problem in the first place.
Get out of the office. You can’t operate effectively in the vacuum of the workplace alone. You have to get out and interact with your customers, potential customers, partners, etc. Only by this interaction can you begin to validate your assumptions that went into crafting offerings, making plans, structuring business models, etc. This out of the building interaction will help you find areas to exploit and avoid costly mistakes.
There is no magic potion for creating a great culture. It takes work and a thoughtful approach. You must define the type of culture you want and then, starting with your mission and value statements, takes constant and congruent steps to implement the culture. You’ll be amazed at how productive and enjoyable your workforce will become and you’ll all share the common goals of meeting your company goals.
M.K. Nelson, who has been an entrepreneur and strategy coach & consultant for over two decades, has written a practical strategy guide on the best small business ideas. For a limited period you can get a free guide by visiting his small business resource library and also get tips to help make your business the most profitable small business it can be.