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Does Growth Have to Be So Hard for Midsize Companies?
The 2 Keys to More Progress for Midsize Companies The 3 Basic Elements of a Successful Strategy How to Build an A-Player Leadership Team The 3 Disciplines of Drama-Free Execution The 3 Ingredients to Get Out of The Weeds The Key Mindset to Grow and Thrive Why a DIY Approach Slows Growth The 8 Options for Outside Support  It’s often worthwhile for CEOs and executive teams of mid-size companies to take a hard look at ways to directly and quickly improve profitability and cash flow. This can complement the more proactive and holistic performance enhancing work they need to do on their strategy, people and execution. However, we find this is an area many CEOs and their teams want to hand off to their CFO or controller. In reality, this is the work that every leader and manager in the company needs to do. Because that’s who actually drives revenue increases, efficiency gains and cost reductions in the operation. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches podcast, my colleague and author Jeff Redmon, in Wisconsin, shares case studies of how CEOs and their teams increased cash flow and profitability throughout their organizations. Subscribe to Gravitas Impact podcast: Android How can you improve profitability and cash flow in your company? To find out how to increase profit and cash to to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 5 to check your profit and cash flow improvement processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In 2010, while I was working at Concentra Financial, the late Myrna Bentley, then CEO, caught me in the elevator one day after an executive team strategic planning session I had led, and gave me a surprise gift: the book Blue Ocean Strategy.
It was just one of the many examples of Myrna’s generosity that I witnessed there. And the book ended up having a big influence on my work with many companies. Written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, the Blue Ocean Strategy approach suggests that a business’ current market is often a bloody ocean, where competitors fight to the death for the same limited set of customers. The authors describe how to, instead, open up a significant “blue ocean” where competitors have yet to appear. The book describes structured ways to look for opportunities to fulfil the unmet needs and preferences of non-customers – those who aren’t buying from us or our competitors – opening up a whole new market. For my clients, the approach has also been helpful for finding a profitable niche within their current market and clarifying their competitive strategy to best meet the needs of that niche. It has also helped reduce costs by identifying and eliminating features customers don’t really value. I am grateful to Myrna, and all my other mentors, for the models and best practices they’ve shared with me over the years, including Blue Ocean Strategy. Book: 216 pages. Audio book: 6 hours. Soundview summary: 4 pages, 16 minute audio. GetAbstract summary: 5 pages, 10 minute audio. How can you improve your competitive strategy? To find out what you can improve in your competitive strategy to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete sections 3 and 6 to check your competitive strategy. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  Most CEOs, presidents and owners I talk to know they need a strategy to guide the business forward. Yet most find it challenging to develop a solid strategy and in a way that gets their whole leadership team aligned around it. In my 17 years experience working with leaders and their senior teams, the biggest mistake is treating strategy development as a one-time event rather than an ongoing process. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches webinar, Mark Bishop, director and general manager of Active Healthcare in Auckland, New Zealand, discusses how the Bishops' family business enjoyed significant improvements in growth, profitability and fun through the process of Radical Alignment to a Core Strategy. Mark is joined by his Gravitas Impact Premium Coach, Leigh Paulden, also in Auckland, to share his perspective on Active Healthcare’s strategy development process. How can you develop a great strategy for your company? To find out how to build a great strategy to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 3 to check your strategy processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  CREATE MOMENTUM FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH In partnership with Growth Faculty, we are delighted to offer you a $50 discount to Turning the Flywheel, a 2.5-hour live and interactive virtual event with Jim Collins. Align your leadership team and business strategy with one of the global masters of business, Jim Collins. The most powerful concept in Jim's bestseller, Good to Great, the Flywheel is an architecture of momentum to build and sustain business growth for decades to come. WATCH JIM COLLINS' OVERVIEW ON TURNING THE FLYWHEEL In this highly interactive event you will learn: 1. The deep principle of the flywheel and the research behind it 2. How to apply the flywheel to your specific business context 3. How to optimize, renew and extend the impact of your flywheel for decades to come A unique opportunity for business leaders and followers of Jim's work, this is the first time Jim will present a deep dive into this business-changing concept, embraced by the world's most successful organisations. Master the Flywheel framework to disrupt the world around you and reach unprecedented success. Tuesday, November 16, 2021 - 4pm in SK and MB  NON-MEMBER: $295 | OUR NETWORK: $245 *Prices quoted in USD. The GOOD TO GREAT trademark is owned by The Good to Great Project LLC. Used with permission.
How can you create momentum for growth in your company? To create momentum to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In my last article in this 5 Minute Growth Tips series, I wrote about how CEOs can speed up the process of implementing best practices in their leadership team and company by getting outside help rather than using a Do-It-Yourself approach.
So what kind of services are available and how do they all compare? When evaluating the options, we want to keep in mind the key underlying challenges we want help with to implement the structures, systems and processes needed to grow profitably, and enjoy the ride. These challenges include:
Note that all these challenges involve not just technical changes (eg. how we set goals, run a more effective interview, or put together an effective meeting agenda), but also changes to how we and our leadership team members behave (eg. learning to say no to goals that are nice but not top priority, developing the discipline to drill into a job applicant’s past, or practicing the restraint to let all team members speak first). So we’ll want to look for help with both technical and behavioural improvements when we consider the options. Here, we’ll explore the eight most common types of outside support I’ve seen CEOs and business owners consider over my 17 years working with them:
Below, I’ve described each type of service as if it were pure. But they rarely are. There are business consultants who also offer strategic planning facilitation, and HR consultants who also do executive coaching. By reviewing the summaries below you should have a feel for who offers what even if they offer more than one type of service. CEO Peer Forums CEO peer forums are peer groups of CEOs and owners from non-competing companies. They usually meet once a month for a half day to a day. This includes sharing wins and obstacles, hearing other members’ experiences, and sharing goals and commitments to apply what they discovered. In most peer forum meetings, there will also be a presentation from a guest speaker, or the moderator, on a topic of interest to the group. The Pros: CEOs and owners develop relationships with peers who understand where they are coming from. Being a CEO or business owner can be a lonely job because no one inside the company understands what they’re going through. A CEO forum solves this problem. It can also be a great place for networking. Keep in mind that most CEO forum groups frown upon any kind of sales activities in the group, including asking for referrals and introductions to other business owners. The Cons: While CEOs will hear others’ experiences of how they handled certain situations, they’ll need to keep in mind that the tactics shared may or may not be proven best practices. While an approach may have worked for their CEO peer, it may not work in their own unique environment. Similarly, the tactics shared may have gotten the peer CEO through the situation, but may not have produced excellent results. Members will also want to keep in mind that their own description of the problem will be the basis of the solutions others share. If we don’t fully see our problem, or we’re biased in how we see it, the solutions other members share could be misguided. Without others seeing our situation first hand, there is no way for our CEO peers to be truly objective with the solutions they offer. One of the CEO peer forum members is implementing solutions they hear, because they then have to convince their leadership team that the problem exists and that the solution they heard will work. This can lead to hesitation, if not resistance, from their leadership team. Business Consultants Business consultants aim to provide analysis and insights to a CEO or other leader on what needs to change. These vary from “pair-of-hands consultants”, who are hired to carry out some work the company directs them to do, through to “expert consultants” who review information, meet with team members and provide recommendations for what to change or improve. In between these two are “collaborative consultants.” They do the same work as expert consultants but work hand-in-hand with the client to gather information and develop recommendations, so the client builds some capability in-house. The Pros: Experienced and effective business consultants can provide insight on a focused problem that is technical in nature, whether it is about business processes, financial management, accounting, marketing activities, or sales processes, in short, within the various functional areas of a business. They can also provide validation for a high stakes decision by gathering more rigorous data and doing a more thorough analysis than the client has the ability or resources to do themselves. The Cons: Business consultants are not often experts at supporting the implementation of their recommendations. I’ve met many business owners who have hired consultants only to have the report still sitting on a shelf, collecting dust. In my experience, there are many more consultants who only make recommendations than those who will stand behind those recommendations to see them through. That said, some consultants will work as contractors to implement new processes or systems, manage and maintain them for a while and then train others in the company to take them over. However, this only works for trainable technical skills as opposed to behavioural skills, which take much more than training. Changes in behavior require the CEO and leadership team to realize that they are part of the problem and that they need to change how they do things. With the challenges we’ve been discussing in this 5 Minute Growth Tips article series, doing some analysis and making a recommendation usually does not work for behaviour change. Instead, we need to get them to think about how they are contributing to the problems and consider what they need to do differently, so that they will take ownership in the solution and change their behavior. While some consultants have this capability, it’s generally not what consultants do. HR Consultants Given that working on our leadership team processes and systems involves changing behaviours, we might consider those we think of as experts on people. HR consultants will typically take a similar approach to broader business consultants, but focus on the human resource management function. Again, those who use an expert consulting approach will review documents, hold interviews and provide recommendations. Those who use a collaborative approach will do the same, but with the client rather than for them. However, HR Consultants’ work will typically be limited to HR processes and systems: job design, hiring, orientation, onboarding, training, performance planning and review, compensation, disciplining, dismissal and labor law. Some HR consultants will provide individual or organizational assessment services based on surveys or interviews. And some also provide basic strategic planning services (see below). The Pros: When a CEO or owner is absolutely certain that the main area for improvement in the leadership team is a technical one related to how individuals are found, managed, paid and removed, an HR consultant may be appropriate. However, keep in mind that the solutions again are technical ones, not behavioural. The Cons: HR consultants don’t typically support leadership team members to change and improve their behaviours as leaders or team members. Their organizational assessments can be helpful. However, HR consultants will not necessarily pick up on subtle leadership and interpersonal behaviours that could be as or more important factors. Their strategic planning facilitation services usually cover the basics of mission, vision and values, with little or no attention paid to competitive market positioning or execution. Strategic Planning Consultants and Facilitators While business and HR consultants provide recommendations, strategic planning consultants and facilitators moderate leadership team discussions to come up with their own solutions, decisions and plans. The “consultant” in “strategic planning consultant” usually means they recommend the process for strategic planning the leadership team will use to make decisions. The strategic planning consultant doesn’t usually recommend what the leadership team should do in their business. The Pros: Experienced, trained, strategic planning facilitators can be great at moderating and guiding conversations to arrive at clear, well thought out decisions with a level of buy-in and commitment from the team. Having an outside, experienced facilitator also frees up the CEO to participate in the conversation rather than trying to lead the meeting effectively while also contributing. The Cons: Many strategic planning facilitators are well versed in the basic planning processes of SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), Core Values, Mission, Vision and priorities. However, I have met very few who know how to facilitate competitive strategy decisions and execution planning and monitoring, let alone other key issues that often arise, like role clarity, talent assessments, profitability, cash flow and mindset, just to name a few of the dozens of practices that help with growing a mid-sized company. Team Building Facilitators and Trainers Team building facilitators generally come in three flavors. There are those who do personality assessment sessions, those who lead team building learning activities, and other event and activity businesses who have branched out into this space. Personality assessment sessions have leadership team members learn about each others’ personality types and how to work better together. Team building learning activities include fun, social events intended to bring awareness to basic collaboration skills like listening, communicating, planning, problem solving, etc. Some examples of these activities include team obstacle courses, activities to build objects with unusual materials, or trust falls. Other event and activity businesses, like wall climbing studios, escape rooms and axe throwing centres, also offer their activities for companies looking to do team building. The Pros: Personality assessments are a worthwhile team building activity. By understanding our own and each other’s strengths and weaknesses, preferences and frustrations, leadership team members have to be open and vulnerable. This often results in a higher level of trust within the team and team members communicating more effectively with others. Team building activities can be fun for team members, create structured time together in a more relaxed environment, and can remind them of basic team skills. The Cons: The trust and communication skills developed in a personality assessment session can fizzle rather quickly afterwards. This is because these sessions rarely get into the other critical aspects of leadership team collaboration, like having productive conversations and conflict, making clear decisions that all team members are committed to, and holding each other accountable for execution and results. So while personality assessments are good as far as they go, they don’t go far enough. Similarly, the skills identified in team building activities rarely lead to meaningful application within real life decision-making and execution. These activities usually take place in a separate, fun environment or involve role plays. Without application and practice in the challenging realities of the business, the skills won’t stick. Leadership and Executive Coaches When CEOs and owners of mid-size businesses think of a coach, they generally think of an executive or leadership coach. This is someone they would talk to one-on-one, on a regular basis, who would support them in becoming a stronger leader, in curbing a habit they want to change or achieving an important goal. A leadership or executive coach doesn’t analyse the CEO’s business or recommend solutions. Instead, they guide the CEO in working through the problem themselves. In this way, the CEO reflects on their own part in the challenges they face, takes ownership for it, and works on changing those behaviours to achieve a better outcome. Leadership and executive coaches also hold the CEO or business owner accountable for change, progress and results, given they often have no-one to play that role for them. The Pros: Executive and leadership coaches can be a great support to help a leader really move the needle on how they show up, work through problems, interact with others and manage themselves. Leadership and executive coaches also help with execution by supporting the CEO or owner on an ongoing basis. In this way, they guide the CEO through the intricacies and hiccups of making new behaviours stick in the face of day-to-day real-life challenges. Cons: A key limitation of one-on-one executive and leadership coaching is that the CEOs of mid-size companies may often learn things that they want their leadership team members to learn as well. Yet they’ll often find it difficult to teach those concepts to their people themselves. They may then find they have to get the same one-on-one coaching for one or more of their team members. Another limitation is executive and leadership team coaching addresses the individual’s behaviour, but doesn’t fully address the relationships and interactions between the individual and someone else, because the other person’s perspectives and behaviours are not factored in. In a similar way, it doesn’t address the relationships and interactions across a leadership team. Beyond that, leadership and executive coaching tends to focus more on behaviours and less so on the technical business aspects a CEO and leadership team need to also pay attention to, areas like: strategy, execution, systems, customer, profitability and cash flow. Business Coaches Like leadership and executive coaches, business coaches work one-on-one with owners, serve more as problem-solving guides rather than do-it-for-you analysts, and hold them accountable for progress. In contrast to leadership and executive coaches, business coaches tend to focus more on business aspects and less so on leadership behaviours. They often work with owners of small to mid-size companies to guide them through key business decisions. The Pros: A seasoned, trained, certified business coach can be a great resource for owners of small businesses: those who don’t yet have a management team and don’t yet need one. In these businesses, the owner is the key decision maker for every function in the business - from marketing, sales and production to HR, accounting and IT. Given the multiple areas a business owner needs to pay attention to, an experienced business coach can help them find their way and keep on top of everything. The Cons: Like leadership and executive coaches, business coaches work one-on-one with the business owner. Once a business grows to the point of having or needing a management team (usually around 15 to 30 employees), the business owner will have one or more managers leading certain functions, whether that’s marketing and sales, production, or finance and administration. At this point, the business owner may want these other managers to receive professional guidance from their business coach as well. However, this can lead to problems where decisions made by the owner become disjointed from the decisions made by the other manager(s). This will cause different parts of the business to go in different directions and cause unnecessary conflict, inefficiencies, problems for employees and customers, and subpar performance overall. Business Growth Advisors and Leadership Team Coaches In the last 10 to 15 years, a new type of coaching service has evolved to meet the needs of mid-sized company CEOs and their whole leadership teams. Some of these coaches call their service Leadership Team Coaching. Others call it Business Growth Advisory Services, Business and Leadership Growth Coaching or CEO and Executive Team Coaching. Regardless of the label, this hybrid service includes a combination of regular, ongoing one-on-one CEO coaching and facilitated leadership team planning and coaching sessions, whether quarterly or monthly. This newer breed of coaching also uses some of the same group facilitation methods as strategic planning facilitators and team building trainers, but with a more holistic set of both leadership and business best practices, so they can support and guide the large majority of decisions and actions a CEO and leadership team need to take on their growth journey. The Pros: With an experienced, trained and certified Business Growth Advisor or Leadership Team Coach, CEOs and owners of mid-sized companies get many of the benefits of the other options above, with few of the disadvantages. A seasoned Business Growth Advisor or Leadership Team Coach provides a caring, empathetic, understanding ear because they’ve seen the CEO’s situation many times before. They share and teach proven best practices that have been shown to get results. The whole leadership team learns these best practices and buys into them more easily. They act as an outside, objective observer who can point things out that the CEO and team may not be aware of. They support both the technical and business improvements and the behavioural and leadership change needed for the leadership team to truly move forward. Working with the leadership team as a whole enables improved interactions and relationships across the team. They guide the leadership team through critical real-life, real-time decisions and planning, in ways that ensure the whole team is clear, focused and aligned. They enable the CEO to fully participate rather than worrying about running the meetings. They support high level strategic thinking decisions right down to detailed execution planning, accountability and course correction, so that real progress is made. The Cons: On the other hand, Business Growth Advisors and Leadership Team Coaches are more expensive than leadership, executive or business coaches as well as strategic planning and team building facilitators. This is because of the much greater value they bring in terms of decision-making quality, execution follow-through and business results. It’s also because of the years of business, coaching and facilitation experience needed to be effective guiding a CEO and their whole leadership team. That said, the whole leadership team benefits from the service, not just the CEO. So the investment per person can still be lower than some of the other options above. This kind of service is also not for those who are looking for a quick fix. Recall that growing a company involves both technical and behavioural improvements at all levels of the company, within every department, and across a number of different areas: leadership, talent, strategy, execution, cashflow, customer, systems. It takes ongoing focus, commitment and discipline to implement the many best practices needed to grow and profitably. And so business growth advisors and leadership team coaches provide the ongoing support for CEOs and their leadership teams to lay the foundation and build from there over time. For CEOs and owners of mid-sized companies who’ve recognized a Do-It-Yourself approach is too slow and are looking for outside support and guidance, there are a number of options to choose from. However, in my experience, to see real improvement, progress and results within themselves, across their leadership team and down through their organization, Business Growth Advisors and Leadership Team Coaches offer the best investment to grow profitably and enjoy the ride. While a Business Growth Advisor and Leadership Team Coach may be best for you and your company. Will you be a good fit for them? In my next article, I’ll share what it takes to be successful with a Business Growth Advisor and Leadership Team Coach. How can you grow a thriving company? To find out what to focus on to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  With the CEOs we work with, we often have them take a hard look at what roles they need to delegate to focus less on the day-to-day and more on growing their company. These can include functions like marketing, sales, finance, accounting, operations, human resource, information technology. However, they are then faced with the question of what their role should be instead. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches podcast, my colleague and author Brad Giles, in Perth, Australia, uncovers the five roles a CEO must play for their mid-size company to consistently achieve great results. Subscribe to Gravitas Impact podcast: Android
How can you grow a thriving company? To find out what to focus on to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  Having read many books on competitive strategy, I’ve often seen references to Michael’s Porter’s seminal book, Competitive Advantage, written in 1998.
I’ve always thought it would be a helpful read. And although I expected it to be dry and academic, I decided to give it a chance. Michael Porter is a highly respected Harvard Business School researcher, advisor, speaker, author and teacher. Competitive Advantage outlines the three categories of competitive strategy that Porter and his team discovered among successful companies. They include: Cost Advantage, Differentiation, and either of these applied to a Focused Market rather than the whole market. The book covers how to identify and strengthen the inter-related activities in a company that allow for each type of competitive advantage, as well as how to leverage technology in that effort. It goes into detail on segmenting markets, evaluating competitors, introducing complimentary products and using offensive and defensive strategies. It’s a massive read: over five hundred pages of rather technical writing with only the occasional real-world example. I was right. While brilliant and insightful, it’s not for the faint of heart. Book: 535 pages, 21 hour and 23 minute audio book. How can you improve your competitive advantage? To find out what you can improve in your competitive strategy to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete sections 3 and 6 to check your competitive strategy. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In partnership with The Growth Faculty, we’re delighted to offer you discounted rates to Leading at the Speed of Trust with Stephen M. R. Covey. Join Stephen M. R. Covey, multi-bestselling author and advisor on trust, leadership, ethics, and high performance, in this live 90-minute masterclass. Stephen is a leading authority on transforming teams and organisations, maximising human performance and leveraging trust as a strategic multiplier. He will share the research-validated framework, language and process for deliberately creating a sustainable high-trust culture discussed in his #1 WSJ bestseller, The Speed of Trust. He will also impart lessons learned from noted leaders who have accomplished remarkable results through the Speed of Trust framework. This highly interactive live session includes time for discussion and Q&A to help you diagnose trust issues and create a new way to move forward. Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - 6pm in SK and 7pm in MB  NON-MEMBER: $130 | OUR NETWORK: $79 *Prices quoted in USD. How can you improve leadership in your company?
To take you and your team’s leadership to the next level to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 1 and 2 to check your leadership processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  Every CEO and entrepreneur I’ve met and worked with has faced the challenge of having to delegate some of their activities in order to grow their company. Often, they have to hand off things they do very well that allowed their company to get to where it is. And they can feel hesitant, and even reluctant, to do that. Yet, we find this to be a critical action for CEOs and owners of mid-size companies to create the time and space to focus more on leading their company and their people. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches podcast, senior executive coach John Felkins, outside Nashville, Tennessee, shares a process we use to help CEOs and owners of mid-size companies identify activities they can and need to delegate and to transition those activities successfully, while growing others. Subscribe to Gravitas Impact podcast: Android
How can you develop others to take on more? To find out how to develop your people to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 2 to check your talent development processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  There are many approaches to leading change to solve a problem.
Most include common practices, such as creating a sense of urgency, communicating the vision, celebrating early wins, etc. However, these methods fall down with a certain kind of problem called “adaptive challenges”. One indicator of adaptive challenges is that they persist after attempts to solve them. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, by Ronald Heifetz, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow, goes through how to distinguish adaptive challenges from conventional “technical problems”, and how to successfully lead adaptive change. Technical problems are problems an organization has already developed the know-how to solve. For technical problems, one or more experts in an organization can identify and solve the problem on their own, with others adjusting in minor, known and predictable ways. Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, require a response that is outside the organization’s current knowhow. There is no one expert in the organization who can solve an adaptive challenge. It requires people to do their part. You can’t take the problem off the people because the people are part of the problem. Their ownership and responsibility-taking for the problem becomes part of the solution. Adaptive challenges require people in the organization to change and often require multiple perspectives to identify and solve them. Most problems are bundled. There are some problems that are purely technical. But most problems include both a technical problem component and an adaptive challenge component. Indicators of adaptive challenges include recurring crisis and persistent conflict. This happens when an adaptive challenge hasn’t been addressed fully in the past, because a technical fix was insufficient, and so the challenge resurfaces again and becomes a crisis or persistent conflict. Changes in leaders’, managers’ or employees’ actions and behaviors are great examples, as well as changes in culture and relationships. The authors argue the biggest mistake leaders make is dealing with adaptive challenges as though they are technical problems. That’s one big reason change efforts fail. This happens because leaders often assume any problem is a technical problem. So the leader throws technical fixes at an adaptive challenge. And so the problem persists. People get disappointed because the problem doesn’t go away. Employees feel the leaders should give them a solution, as do the leaders. This creates a dependency loop where leaders over-promise what they can deliver and employees are continually disappointed. Leaders need to instead ask employees to realize that there are alot of problems for which there are no quick solutions, where their own responsibility-taking will be needed, where they’ll have to put in effort to figure out solutions together, and where they themselves will need to develop knowhow to act or behave in new ways. The leader’s job isn’t to provide the answers but instead to frame the questions for which the answers are discovered over time by the collective intelligence of the people. This book, building on the authors’ two previous ones, acts as a practical guide. This one is a must-read for leaders looking to make lasting change on the persistent problems that have eluded them. Book: 304 pages. GetAbstract book summary: 5 pages, 10 minute audio. What could be changed and improved in your company? To find out what changes and improvements you could make to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In my 5 Minute Growth Tips article series, I’ve shared overviews of the key best practices for growing a thriving company.
Yet, you may be asking yourself, “how do I implement each of these best practices? how do I make them happen?” For example, how do I define the right functions on my leadership team? How can we set clear priorities for change and improvement? Or, how do I get my leadership team members to change their mindset? For some leaders, the thought of using an outside expert, like a coach, has never crossed their mind. One reason is they didn't know about coaching as an option. Another is they think it’s their job as a CEO to have all the answers and to figure these things out on their own. And that’s certainly an option...if they want to take the long road. Yet, did Mahama D’Ali, or Lennox Lewis, or any successful athlete, rise to the top of their sports by figuring everything out on their own? No. They each had a coach, an experienced advisor. Or Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Eric Schmidt? Did they build and grow thriving, enduring companies by taking a DIY approach? No, they also used coaches. The notion that a CEO has to figure it all out themselves is actually a self-limiting belief. For sure, CEOs and owners can get there on their own, over time. They’re smart, passionate, energetic and fast learners. But they’ll get there a lot faster with the support of an experienced external advisor. As I mentioned in my previous article in the series, business owners and CEOs often have a high internal locus of control, meaning they believe they have control within themselves to make things happen and influence the world around them. Sometimes, this belief shows up in a counter-productive way where they influence the world by doing too much themselves, rather than getting help from others. As a result, they become the bottleneck, slowing down the company’s development, growth and profitability. That said, let’s consider the option of figuring things out on their own. One could look up and read a book or two on each topic, find the books that include how-to guidance, and implement those best practices with their team. One could even make it simpler and read a book that includes a number of these best practices in one convenient, integrated package, tailored specifically for mid-size companies...like Scaling Up or the 7 Attributes of Agile Growth monograph. One could even attend a workshop where they get a chance to practice a bit with some of the tools. With each of these approaches, it’s then up to the CEO alone to implement their learning in their team and company. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a DIY approach? Some of the advantages are:
Some of the disadvantages include:
In short, the devil is in the details. And there are alot of them. And why is this the case? One word: complexity. Some specific improvements are straightforward, like defining a goal. One can Google how to set a goal like one can Google how to change the oil on a combustion engine. These narrow, individual problems have a straightforward, known solution that applies in most situations. However, improving how leaders lead and how companies operate isn’t so straightforward. Such changes involved a variety of interconnected organizational and leadership best practices. For example, strengthening accountability takes much more than setting a goal. And how the goal is set depends on other things like clearly defining individual accountabilities. It’s more like tuning a whole engine. There are multiple parts involved and multiple interacting solutions needed. There are a few other disadvantages to a DIY approach that aren’t the result of complexity.
For business owners or hired CEOs looking to build a great leadership team with the best practices that help them grow a thriving mid-size company, the thinking sometimes goes that it’s their job to have all the answers. They were smart enough to get to this point, so they must be able to figure the rest out on their own. Yet, the DIY approach often leads to failed attempts, cynicism, lack of commitment, delays and missed opportunities. As the 2020 Gravitas Impact Voice of the CEO survey showed, the results are foregone productivity, market share, revenue growth, profit and cash flow. It also found that CEOs often feel unsure, stressed, frustrated, scattered and reactive. Yet the owners and CEOs that get the furthest fastest tend to take a different path. They don’t focus solely on figuring out what they need to do, but also on who they need to learn from and partner with to speed up the process. In fact, the Voice of the CEO survey showed that CEOs who engaged a qualified Gravitas Impact business growth and executive team coach saw significant improvements in employee engagement, overall productivity, revenue growth and profitability. They also felt more focused, clear, confident, balanced, calm and strategic. In my next 5 Minute Growth Tip article, I’ll compare the pros and cons of various options for getting dedicated and tailored, external expert guidance, from strategic planning facilitators and business consultants to CEO forum groups, business coaches and executive team coaches. What can you do to grow your mid-size company? To find out what you and your leadership team could do to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In partnership with The Growth Faculty, we’re delighted to offer you discounted rates to The 5 Question Leader with Michael Bungay Stanier. Organisational learning and development expert and author of the runaway best seller The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier, has the secret sauce on bringing the skill of coaching into the workplace. In a 90 minute live masterclass, Michael draws on the experience of training more than 10,000 managers in everyday coaching skills to give you the tools to unlock your people’s potential. “Being more coach-like was the characteristic that most distinguished leaders who best created impact.” Michael Bungay Stanier Wednesday, August 10, 2021 - 7pm in SK and 8pm in MB NON-MEMBER: $99 | OUR NETWORK: $79 *Prices quoted in USD. How can you improve coaching in your company?
To take people development to the next level in your company to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 1 to check your people development processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  If you were a CEO or business owner coming out of a severe industry downturn, or facing an eventual surge in demand, how would you invigorate your midsize company to truly take advantage of the opportunity? Add to that, you’re in an industry where creating a sustainable competitive advantage is nearly impossible, because most anything you do can be copied. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches webinar, Andy Warren, former President of award-winning Maracay Homes in Phoenix, Arizona, shares his decade-long tenure of working through these challenges and building a top-performing company, focusing on culture, people, and clarity. Andy is joined by his Gravitas Impact Premium Coach, Keith Cupp, to share parallel insights into Maracay’s “not so secret, secrets of success” How can you build a great culture in your company?
To find out how to build a great culture to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 1, 2 and 4 to check your culture processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In partnership with The Growth Faculty, we’re delighted to offer you discounted rates to The Critical Art of Rethinking with Adam Grant. THE POWER OF WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW Let organisational psychologist and leading expert in motivation, Adam Grant, open your mind and challenge your notions of what builds resilience. Adam will present a 90-minute live, interactive virtual masterclass in a first for The Growth Faculty. Learn to rethink, unlearn, interrogate ‘truths’ and embrace being wrong to develop the cognitive skills needed to adapt to change and build resilience in the workplace. Adam has been described as a deeply engaging storyteller and a wildly entertaining speaker. - DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO SEE AND INTERACT WITH ADAM GRANT - Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - 6pm in SK and 7pm in MB NON-MEMBER: $99 | OUR NETWORK: $79 *Prices quoted in USD. What don’t you know about your company?
To discover your blindspots about your business to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  In last week’s blog, I shared a podcast highlighting how CEOs can develop their leadership team members into A-Players by looking in the mirror at their own management style.
The book, 12: The Elements of Great Managing, by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter, can help. It highlights twelve key management practices that have the greatest impact on employee engagement as shown by increases in several tangible business performance metrics. The book is based on two decades of Gallup surveys, interviews, focus groups and statistical analysis. 12 is a breath of fresh air for business owners, leaders and managers overwhelmed by the wide variety of management models and books they’ve come across. It helps by highlighting what makes the biggest difference. The 12 elements, written from the perspective of the employee, are:
Note that 12 does not hone in on what specific management behaviors or organizational systems to change at a deeper level to strengthen those twelve elements. The twelve elements are those seen and experienced by employees. Less visible dynamics such as leadership team functioning, culture, authenticity and trust underlie them. Yet, I have found 12 to be a helpful tool for leaders and managers I work with. Many management frameworks can either be too high level to be actionable or lose leaders in the weeds with rheams of behaviours and tactics while forgetting the impact leaders need to have on their people in the first place. 12, on the other hand, provides leaders with a relatively small set of clear, tangible practices enabling their people to develop and be more engaged. From there, leaders can clearly identify what they are doing that is helping or getting in the way. By strengthening these 12 practices in yourself, you can also inspire your leadership team members to strengthen how they manage their people, creating a positive impact on employee engagement, productivity and results throughout your company. Book: 280 pages. Audio book: 4 hours 15 minutes. Soundview book summary: 8 pages, 20 minute audio. How can you manage your leadership team members more effectively? To find out how to manage your team members to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 2 to check your people management processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  When members of our leadership team aren’t performing, it’s easy to jump to blame. But that gets us nowhere. Instead, we can ask ourselves “how am I contributing to the situation?”. As the head of a company, our leadership has a huge impact on the people we lead. It can either support or stifle performance. So getting the most out of the leaders on our team requires us to first look in the mirror. Every CEO I’ve worked with has had to take this step at some point to see meaningful improvement in their team and company. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches podcast, my colleague Graham Mitchell in Johannesburg, South Africa, shares two stories of CEOs who built A Player leadership teams by considering how their own leadership style was supporting or hindering their efforts. How can you develop more A-players on your leadership team?
To find out how to develop more A-player leaders to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 2 to check your talent processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  There are many common challenges to growing a thriving mid-size company. There are solutions to every one of them (as I’ve shared in this 5 Minute Growth Tip article series). But sometimes it doesn’t seem that way.
It can feel like we’re stuck, like there are no options to address our deepest concerns and frustrations. We may even hide those thoughts and feelings from others, or even deny to ourselves that we have them. Yet, they still remain in the background of our thinking, gnawing away at our focus and energy. This is an opportunity to check our thinking. Our thinking drives our actions. And our thinking can cause us to not take action. When we think there’s nothing we can do about a problem, we’ll naturally stand still on that issue. When we believe we can resolve it, we’ll find a solution and drive forward. Organizational psychologists have researched these two ways of thinking extensively. They are part of what’s called our “locus of control”. One way of thinking is that our situation is controlled by things that happen outside of us. We believe we are a victim of circumstances or of what others are doing. This is an external locus of control. The second way of thinking is that our situation can be influenced by what we do. We believe we can always do something that will make any situation we face better. This is an internal locus of control. Think of the word “locus” as “location”. Is our thinking putting the “location” of control of the situation outside ourselves (external) or within ourselves (internal)? As human beings, we tend to grow up with a tendency toward either an internal locus of control or an external one. We don’t exclusively think one way or the other, but rather predominantly. However, we don’t necessarily think one way about everything. There can be areas of our lives and facets of our business that we treat with an internal locus of control mindset, and other areas that we tend to treat with an external locus of control. As entrepreneurs and business leaders, we often predominantly have an internal locus of control: we believe we can make things happen. However, we can also have an external locus of control in certain areas. For example, we might have an internal locus of control about getting more sales. We know that our actions directly influence our company’s sales volumes, and we look for and find ways to increase them. Yet, we might have an external locus of control about being able to hire A players. We may believe that there just aren’t any really strong employees out there, or none of them are looking for work, or they all want too much money, or they all hide their faults in interviews, etc. By switching our thinking to an internal locus of control in this area, we can find solutions. We can ask ourselves, “what is it that I’m doing that is getting in the way of hiring A players?” And from there, we can ask “what can I do differently to find A players?” For example, do I have a clear description of what an A player will produce so I know exactly who I am looking for? What am I doing to network with A players I know in my industry who likely know other A players? Have I shopped around for an excellent recruiting company who can help me find the right people? Have I bolstered my interviewing skills to discover candidates’ true strengths, abilities and qualities? Have we captured on paper the advantages of working at our company, and do we sell great candidates on those virtues? Believing we have influence over the situation causes us to look for solutions we can act on. There’s also a way that an entrepreneur’s strong internal locus of control can actually create an external locus of control mindset in another area. I often see this struggle with CEOs and owners I meet. They complain that they don’t have enough time. This complaint is coming from an external locus of control mindset: the belief that their lack of time is happening to them. (Note that every complaint is really a form of external locus of control). When I invite a CEO or owner to flip their mindset to an internal locus of control, and ask themself what they are doing that is causing them to not have enough time, they realize that they are causing the problem. They often are attempting to jump on every problem and opportunity that comes up, and they are not delegating tasks and roles enough. In this way, as entrepreneurs, our internal locus of control about solving problems can cause us to have an external locus of control about time. Our tendency to think we can take control of any situation actually causes us to be so busy that we think we don’t have control of our time. Yet we do. We just need to change how we tackle problems: by equipping others to take care of them rather than solving them ourselves. This mindset is a key linchpin in growing a thriving mid-sized company. The only way to grow and grow profitably, is to implement the structures, systems and processes to enable that growth. This then requires a leadership team that handles the day-to-day and can help with implementing many of those systems. These systems need to be guided by a solid strategy for competing in the market. That strategy needs to be executed efficiently. And efficient execution requires an A player leadership, as well as efficient buy-in to support accountability. And all of these business practices take time. As a result, a CEO or owner will want to shift their mindset more fully to thinking about what they are doing, or not doing, that is causing them to be too busy to do these essential things. By doing so, they will get clear on what they need to do differently to free themselves up to shift increasingly from doing to leading. And, more generally, the practice of internal locus of control will help any leader, and their top team, look at how they’re contributing to a problem, and what they can do to influence it. One of the ways leaders contribute to problems in their company is by trying to figure things out all on their own. We’ll tackle that topic in my next 5 minute growth tip article. What can you do to grow your mid-size company? To find out what you and your leadership team could do to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  Many CEOs will say they would love to get their time back...time to work ON the business rather than IN it. The starting point is to ensure that there are only A-players in the organization. A-players minimize drama and maximize productivity, freeing up time for the CEO, and leadership team, to work ON the business. In this Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches podcast, my colleague Jerry Fons in Wisconsin goes over 1) what an A player is, 2) how to identify A players and 3) the key best practices to develop leaders and employees into A-players and to maximize the number of A-players in the organization. Spoiler alert! It starts by looking in the mirror as a CEO and at the systems and structures the CEO and leadership team have in place that enable non-A-player performance to continue. How can you have more A-players in your company?
To find out how to have more A-players to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 2 to check your talent processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation. In partnership with The Growth Faculty, we’re delighted to offer you discounted rates to The Critical Art of Rethinking with Adam Grant. THE POWER OF WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW Let organisational psychologist and leading expert in motivation, Adam Grant, open your mind and challenge your notions of what builds resilience. Adam will present a 90-minute live, interactive virtual masterclass in a first for The Growth Faculty. Learn to rethink, unlearn, interrogate ‘truths’ and embrace being wrong to develop the cognitive skills needed to adapt to change and build resilience in the workplace. Adam has been described as a deeply engaging storyteller and a wildly entertaining speaker. - DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO SEE AND INTERACT WITH ADAM GRANT - Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - 6pm in SK and 7pm in MB NON-MEMBER: $99 | OUR NETWORK: $79 *Prices quoted in USD. What don’t you know about your company?
To discover your blindspots about your business to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  As a CEO, how can we “delegate and elevate"? One way is to ensure we have only A-players on our leadership team.
A great leadership team enables the CEO to entrust the team and its members with getting results consistently and leading change in the company. This frees up the CEO to spend more time leading and less time doing, which is essential for a company to grow and thrive. And so, CEOs need to be skilled at hiring leadership team members. While HR can support the process, the CEO needs to stay highly involved. Who: The A Method for Hiring captures the best method we Gravitas Impact coaches have seen for consistently hiring A players. Unfortunately, most managers use what author Geoff Smart calls “voodoo hiring techniques.” While common, they get poor results. Smart and his firm meticulously developed and tested the A Method over 23 years, simplifying it for mid-size companies from Geoff’s father Brad’s TopGrading system, which is more geared for larger corporate companies. The A Method includes four parts: Scorecard – describes exactly what the person will need to accomplish. While job descriptions tend to capture mere accountabilities and responsibilities, or worse yet, a list of duties, a job scorecard captures the specific results to be delivered. Source – systematically sourcing before you have slots to fill so you have a large pool of high quality candidates when you need them. A small pool generated on short notice is one of the main reasons managers hire less-than-ideal candidates. Short-notice sourcing is often done through advertising or job postings, which will access job-seekers. And job-seekers are often not A players. Select – a series of structured interviews that allow you to gather accurate facts about the person. It’s considered normal for candidates to hide their faults and flaws in a job interview. Getting a complete picture of the person is essential to determining if their weaknesses will be manageable. Sell – ways to persuade the perfect candidate to join. A players are usually already employed or are being sought out by other employers. Selling the candidate increases the odds they’ll go Most companies jump straight into sourcing and selecting without clarity on the results they want the person to accomplish. Or they’re starting from scratch with sourcing, leading to few great candidates. Book: 189 pages. Audio book: 4h47m. Soundview summary: 8 pages, 20m audio. getAbstract summary: 5 pages, 10m audio. How can you hire more A-players in your company? To find out how to have stronger talent and leaders to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 2 to check your A-player processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  As a CEO, there are many things we can do to get out of the weeds. One of the most freeing actions we can take is to let our people do their jobs, solve their own problems and lead big projects to improve things. In this Gravitas Impact podcast, Hazel Jackson, CEO of the Biz Group in Dubai, shares how. Based on the Biz Group’s work teaching Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers framework, as well as based on Hazel’s own experience as a CEO, she tells some insightful stories about leadership habits that helped her succeed in the early years of her company but that became liabilities that held back her company’s growth. In this 30 minute podcast, Hazel speaks to 1) the CEO’s primary role of fully tapping into (and stretching) their peoples’ smarts, 2) common accidental Diminisher behaviours for entrepreneurs and 3) some practical actions we can take to become more of a Multiplier and get 50% more from our people. How can you strengthen empowerment in your entrepreneurial company?
To find out how to improve empowerment in your business to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete sections 1, 2 and 4 to check your empowerment practices. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  Over this 5 Minute Growth Tip article series, I’ve described the critical leadership team best practices to implement the structures, systems and processes to enable profitable growth.
However, any CEO or owner might be thinking, “I can see how it works, but I’m really busy! I don’t have time for these things. I don’t even have time for family, friends or even myself.” But rather than say “I don't have time”, what if we asked “how can I make time?” How can I do less of what I’m doing right now so I have the time to put these best practices in place, to enable the profitable growth I want to see, and lead the life I want to live? How can I get out of the weeds? The chicken or the egg One could maybe end this article right here with the simple guidance “delegate and elevate”. But it takes more than just delegation. Chances are your team is busy too. So they’ll only be able to take on so much. Unless you’re in a financial position to hire one or more new leaders. If so, identify the functions you lead that you want to delegate, hire another leader and get on with making the changes and improvements to the business to get your return on that investment. But often, making the financial investment in another leader may not seem financially feasible. Instead, you’re in a chicken or egg position: you need to delegate to make more changes to improve profitability, but you need more leaders to be able to delegate more. Or you may just be thinking, “we’ve got to be able to get more done with the people we have”. Regardless of whether or not you invest in a new leader up front, delegating more yourself, and as a leadership team, will enable you to put more of the right structures, systems and processes in place to grow and profitably. The solution is to increase your leadership team’s efficiency so your team members have the capacity to take on some of your roles and/or lead some internal change projects on your behalf. How do you do that? By getting the right people in the right seats, improving execution and strengthening leadership team buy-in and accountability. Right people in the right seats An efficient leadership team means each team member is doing their job efficiently, collaborating effectively and minimizing drama. If all this is happening, they’ll need less attention from you and they’ll have the capacity to take on roles you’re currently doing. This starts with defining the right functions on the leadership team and making adjustments to have the right person leading each function. Over time, if not early on, other leaders will be able take on functions you’re currently leading. For example, you may still be leading sales, marketing, operations or R&D. What would it be like to have someone else doing a great job fully leading one or more of those areas? The goal is to make sure each leader is highly productive leading their function(s) and driving high productivity in their respective teams. We also want them to behave in constructive ways (aligned with your core values) that minimize drama across the leadership team and within each of their departments. Leaders can become even more efficient by ensuring they have the right people in the right seats within their departments and that their people are also behaving constructively. All of this will also help your leaders create more capacity to lead the kinds of internal improvement projects that you’re leading right now. See this article for more on getting the right people in the right seats. Efficient execution Having the right people in the right seats on your team provides a good foundation. How much of their potential productivity you tap into then depends on how each leader and the team executes. Through improved execution practices, your leadership team members will deliver better results, need less attention from you, have capacity to take on one or more of your functions and lead improvement projects you might otherwise lead. Great execution involves: 1) each leader owning clear metrics and targets for the company and their respective functions for the year and the next quarter, 2) each leader driving 1 to 3 clear priorities for change and improvement for the next year and quarter, with a 13 week action plan to make it happen, and 3) a rhythm of efficient weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings to hold each other accountable to hit the numbers, move the priorities forward and set new priorities for the next quarter. Daily huddles also help speed things up by identifying obstacles to solve as soon as they come up. A note regarding choosing those few critical priorities: getting the right people in the right seats needs to be a top priority for the quarter if you want to delegate and elevate yourself, and have your leaders do the same. You will then be rewarded every quarter with a bit more capacity so you can work more on other priorities to move the company forward. See this article for more on efficient execution. Leadership team buy-in and accountability For any of this to work, the leadership team needs to be bought in and committed. The best way is to do all this WITH your team, not TOO your team. Discuss and decide on leadership team functions and assignments, set metrics and targets, and decide on company priorities, all WITH your leadership team. This way, they’ll be fully bought into these changes and driven to make them happen. All these practices will improve accountability and drive efficiency. But you can strengthen accountability further by 1) leading by example in all these activities, 2) raising your expectations of your leaders, and 3) communicating in ways that maintain their natural motivation to execute. See this article for more on leadership team buy-in and accountability. Making it happen Getting the right people in the right seats, improving execution and getting leadership team buy-in and accountability will increase your team’s efficiency and enable you to delegate some of your functions and internal projects, so you can get out of the weeds. As you gain momentum, you’ll carve out more time for yourself and your team to work on strategy, implement other structures, systems, processes, and build capacity to grow and grow profitably. Ultimately, you’ll also start to be able to make more time for your family, rekindle old friendships and get back some of the personal things you enjoy. You probably won’t delegate and elevate in one fell swoop. But bite off what you can and you’ll create capacity to bite off more as you go. For example, you might find that more than one leader needs to be replaced. Start with one in the first quarter. Replacing even just one unfit leader with an excellent one will help reduce your workload. This will give you some breathing room to make other changes. The same will hold true for the employee changes your leaders make in their departments. That said, at the foundation of all this is having a rhythm of efficient meetings to make decisions as a team, plan, execute and hold each other accountable. And that takes a commitment of time up front. So now you may be wondering, “I said I was too busy to implement the best practices for profitable growth, and now Jean-Guy is suggesting solving that by implementing some of those same best practices. I said I’m too busy!” Here’s the thing… it’s like exercising. We can say, “I can’t run because I don’t have the heart and lung capacity.” But the only way to build up that capacity is to start running. Not alot to start - maybe 500 meters. But start. After a few runs, you’ll have the capacity to run more - maybe a kilometer. In not too long, you’ll have the capacity to run 5 or 10 kilometers. It’s an investment that pays off. The nice thing is that it pays off as you go. You don’t have to wait until some magical point in the future. But the only way to start getting the payoff is to start. Of course, you have a choice as to how quickly that payoff grows. You can try to figure it out on your own, learn some hard lessons along the way, and find that the benefits come slowly. Or, like with long distance running, you can get a coach who can help you and your leadership team learn the right way from the start, help you become more efficient and build up capacity very quickly. More on that choice in my next article. How can you strengthen delegation in your entrepreneurial company? To find out how to improve delegation in your business to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete sections 1, 2 and 4 to check your delegation practices. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  YOUR INVITATION TO THE EVENT OF THE YEAR You’re invited to a one-of-a-kind event — a live webcast with world-renowned innovator, influencer and entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. As the founder of the Virgin Group, Branson should need no introduction. Conceived in 1970, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow successful businesses in many sectors, including mobile telephony, travel and transportation, financial services, leisure and entertainment, and health and wellness. In 2004, Sir Richard established Virgin Unite, the nonprofit foundation of the Virgin Group, which brings together people and entrepreneurial ideas to create opportunities for a better world. Sir Richard will be interviewed by Jill Schlesinger, an Emmy-nominated and Gracie Award Winning Business Analyst for CBS News. What insights will you glean from one of the boldest thinkers in modern business? Join us on Tuesday 8th June at 5:30PM in SK and 6:30PM in MB to find out. NON-MEMBER: $245 | OUR NETWORK: $145 *Prices quoted in USD. How can you strengthen your entrepreneurial company?
To find out how to improve the entrepreneurial systems in your business to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation.  I was looking for a reference guide of common KPIs to make it easier for the leadership team of one of the companies I work with to identify appropriate metrics to drive execution.
I reached out to my network of colleagues in Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches. They suggested Key Performance Indicators: The 75+ Measures Every Manager Needs to Know, by Bernard Marr. The problem was there was no audio version and no text-to-speech feature. Listening to books while driving or walking my dog is my only option. So I found this “for Dummies” version by the same author. It did the trick. The gist of it In Key Performance Indicators for Dummies, Marr provides, not only a list of common KPIs across the essential areas of financial, customer, internal efficiency and people, but also a comprehensive guidebook to developing and implementing KPIs. While the book, in places, goes into more complexity than is needed for many mid-size companies, he does a nice job of explaining how KPIs connect with and support business strategy and execution disciplines. Marr, an expert in KPIs and big data, emphasizes how KPIs, effectively developed, can support a learning culture of fact-based decision-making where leaders test business assumptions and strategies through metrics. He also shares common pitfalls to avoid, such as tying compensation directly to KPIs, which unwittingly creates an incentive for employees at all levels to distort results. The alternative, in my experience, when incentives are implemented to support an already developed performance culture, is to tie them to numbers that are regimented, centrally controlled and therefore not easily manipulated, such as financial results. The irony of this book is that, while it’s designed as a go-to reference for picking KPIs, it recommends - and rightly so - to not just pick them from a list, but to do the harder thinking as a leadership team of what you’re aiming to achieve and what number you can track to tell you you’re making progress. Length of book: 320 pages. Bernard Marr is founder and CEO of the Advanced Performance Institute and author of 16 books on key performance indicators, metrics, big data, analytics and artificial intelligence. How can you execute on KPIs more effectively in your company? To find out how to have more efficient execution to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 4 to check your execution processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation. |
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