Just having ideas about
where you want to take
your company isn’t good
enough to get it there, says
Daniel Murphy. That’s why
Murphy, president and
founder of The Growth
Coach, says you need to
write those ideas down.
“If you don’t write it down,
it doesn’t become concrete,
and you can’t be held
accountable if you don’t
write it down,” says Murphy,
who leads the business
coaching organization, which
employs about 55 people.
Smart Business spoke with
Murphy about how to establish a clear direction and how
to elicit and evaluate employee feedback on that direction.
Q. How can a leader
communicate a clear direction
to employees?
First, you need to walk the
talk yourself. So, as a leader,
once a quarter, I go engage in
a strategic focusing process.
I get away from sort of the
chaos and the confusion and
the complexity of the office. I
leave for a full day, going
through one of our coaching
sessions and spending the
time. I slow down; I get away
from the office. I elevate out of
the details and do a full day of
really reflecting, thinking, planning and shaping the big plan
that I see us having to have to
get where we want to go.
Every quarter, I’m walking
the talk where I am holding
myself accountable for the big
plan for me taking the time to
think and get clarity of direction. It starts really with the
leader or with that business
owner taking the time to get away from the details of the
business and do some real
thinking and planning, strategically, on, ‘How do I improve
and grow this business? How
do I improve and grow as a
leader?’
Step two is constantly listening and learning from
your team. You can’t have all
the answers yourself.
