May 27, 2011
OPEN Forum Message
Company Culture
Can you recognize signs that your company's culture isn't working? Get advice from the experts on what to look for–and how to fix it.
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Close your eyes and image the future of your company. Did you see your logo on a Gulfstream? A billion-dollar IPO? Keep dreaming, my friend.
Don’t get me wrong, these dreams are awesome and certainly something to strive for, but to get there you’re going to need a more feasible, attainable, short-term vision for growing your company. Without a plan, you’re doomed to float along, unprepared for changes and unable to jump on opportunities when they pop up.
You owe it to yourself to stop planning on planning, and get something concrete and actionable down on paper. When I’m coaching young leaders of hyper-growth companies, I get them to visualize where they want their company to be in three years. It’s a process I call a Painted Picture. It’s an intense, immersive and ultimately invaluable exercise.
“But I barely have enough time to take care of the day-to-day of running my business,” some of you may argue. Remember, even a simple plan produced with a modicum of effort can go a long way to growing your business. There are few easy ways to get started.
First of all, find a nice, quiet spot you’re comfortable in. No telephones, e-mails or Angry Birds—it’s time to get down to business.
Next, perform an honest audit of your company’s strength, weaknesses along with the opportunities and threats it faces. Known as a SWOT analysis to some—and an exercise they vaguely remember from Business School to others.
It’s important to have an honest picture of your strengths and core competencies before you start laying out goals. It might sound obvious, but so often I’ve seen companies set out on a path they have no chance of succeeding on. They don’t have the right people, the right motivation—heck, sometimes they don’t even have the right office space!
Normally, companies looking to grow focus their goals on four key areas: Revenue, profit, customer service, and employee satisfaction. You could probably come up with dozens of others, but you’d also end up spending months cooped up in your little quiet space trying to work out your company’s future.
With that framework in place, it’s time to start daydreaming and brainstorming ideas for each area. Aim high, go crazy, dig deep—then ruthlessly cull the list down to a manageable, realistic number. Once you’ve got 4 or 5 solid, attainable goals, work backward and set out a step-by-step plan on how to you’re going to get there.
Take one of those lofty goals we talked about earlier. You want that logo on a private jet? Let’s reverse engineer from there:
To get that jet, you’ll need to increase revenues to $500 million. To increase revenues that much, you’ll need to expand into emerging markets. To foster expansion like that, you’ll need a bigger, more experienced marketing team. To oversee this team, you’ll need a top notch CMO. To get that kind of talent, you’ll need better compensation packages. Voila, you’re well on the way to owning a private jet.
Okay, it’s not that easy, but laying out your plan on paper, with milestones and actionable tasks makes it a lot more feasible than simply hoping.
Of course, getting your vision down is just one step. You’ll need to sell your future to your employees, align your day-to-day strategy with your long-term plan and, well, a million other things. But that’s all part of the plan, isn’t it?
Check your balance, review recent transactions and pay your bill on the go.
