Q. How do you get
employees to buy in to
the initiatives?
If somebody feels like
they have equity in the decision,
they’re more likely to help you
build consensus and help you
build toward that goal.
If you’re an owner in a home,
you take a lot better care of
that house than when you’re
renting. People in the business
should feel like they’re the
owner of the home. In some
way, shape or form, they take
much greater pride in their
everyday activities and take
ownership in that home.
Giving people the opportunity
to participate gives them ownership in something. We develop plans with the board and
the staff, and they participate in
those. They all sat there and
had an opportunity to express
their opinions, and now they’re
part of making it happen.
It makes it a lot harder for
them to turn around later and
say, ‘Well, I didn’t agree with
that goal.’ Well, you sat in the
room and helped set it.
Giving people participation in
making decisions always
makes it easier to achieve your
goal in the end. When you run
into challenges, they feel like
they were part of it, and they’re
more likely to work together to
achieve those goals when
you’re in the face of some sort
of obstacle or adversity.
Q. How do you measure
progress?
Stay in touch with your customers, and stay on top of your
financial results. Numbers don’t
lie that often.
Something may have been a
great idea, but if the product
isn’t selling, the numbers are
going to be your first clue that
you’re falling short on a budget
goal. The trick is to go back and
look at. ‘OK. Did we not execute well? Was our goal too
high? No, we executed high,
and the goal seemed reasonable. Well, is it just a product
the customer doesn’t want to
buy?’
Keeping your hand on both
the financial side and understanding the customer, it’s pretty hard to deny when something’s not working. Every business faces a resource challenge,
and it’s all about capital allocation, and it’s all about return on
investment, and it’s constantly
measuring that if you have $1 to
spend, what’s the best way to
spend it. And while this may be
a nice thing to do, it’s not the
best way to spend our funds.
I meet with my direct reports
once or twice a month, and we
look at key initiatives that
they’re working on and see
where they are on them. Then
we do a quarterly update
against our goals for the year.
At the end of each quarter, we
can adjust time, resources,
objectives, whatever it is we
have to readjust.
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