The Layers Of Complexity

Working with different Business Leaders and Company owners everyday means I hear about their challenges and frustrations. One common theme is the growing layers of complexity they face each day in their business. There are a number of contributing the factors to this. Firstly the complexity (red tape) that large company's seem to drown their team leaders in. Complying with the requirements of the parent organisation can actually dictate much of the days work and hugely reduce productivity. Who reads these reports? Why is the ability to make decisions not pushed down to the managers on the job so they can be made and dealt with?

Complexity caused by growth is also a common issue. All businesses experience added complexity as they add client numbers, staff numbers, different products or enter new markets. The challenge is to get these company's focused, efficient and their leaders free from daily clutter so they can work on their businesses. It is the evolution of all organisations that as they grow and evolve so too does complexity and this requires new systems and an awareness of the likely problems that will present and tools to overcome them.

Whilst solutions to these issues are also varied the main focus should be on ensuring leaders int he organisation have the delegation and authority to make decisions as they need to rather than having to create a bottleneck by having to push them up the chain. Having simple team KPI's, measuring the numbers that are important to the lifeblood of the business and focusing the whole team onto some simple relevant quarterly goals is essential.

Of course the fact a business is growing in itself is good news.....making it fly is just gold!!

Karl

Living What We Teach

As a Practise we strive to live what we teach, in fact it is one of our core values. We measure our relevant KPI's to help drive the business and we hold each associate accountable for their "piece in the pie".

One of our main measures is to ensure our clients meet their quarterly goals because this is important for them and it ensures we as a team are adding maximum value to their team. To make this a robust process we peer review each clients quarterly goal for relevance in the yearly goal and in the 3-5 year plan. We also check that it is achievable, measurable and challenging.

Living what we teach is an important core value of Results.Com.

Karl

Wacko Jacko

Here's the thing, i actually liked Michael Jackson. For all his weirdness, insecurities, strange family, attitude to kids.....put all that aside and look at his music and wow....a real point of difference. His voice, energy in dance....lets face it skills on the dance floor even! What a brand and what earning potential.

So what went wrong, why was he so heavily in debt? Put into business context you have to ask what his 10-15 year goal was? Did he really use his obvious points of difference in a positive way? Why was the "Michael Jackson" brand replaced by the "Wacko Jacko" brand? There is also the begging question as to whether he really had the right advisers, employees with skills and were they all working towards the big goal?

So as we watch the media frenzy unfold and we are fed the edited version of what happened in his life and watch his bank accounts fill up to the brim "post humously" it is always healthy to look at why his business model did not work and remember his positive aspects...the song and dance he gave the world.

Karl (see our website)

Not knowing What You Don't Know!

There is always an element of comfort when a business owner has owned and operated their company for a number of years. Not taking away the fact that it takes a huge amount of skill and perseverance to own a company built from scratch and to operate it profitably in a constantly changing environment! Many I meet make a lot of their key business decisions based on what they think is going on rather than the what data shows them.

One of the cornerstones of Results.Com is that as an organisation we base all our research and business best practise teachings on hard data. Opinions are like armpits.....we all have them, but when you can actually drill down into a problem part of your business and see actual figures, or measure actual outcomes achieved then you can make sound decisions. Now this does not have to be complicated, in most cases we are talking about making key figures visible so that trends can be monitored.

There is much that flows on from this practise such as having an ability to hold key employees accountable for their roles and goals, making sound decisions about overheads, budgets and of course the peace of mind of knowing that you are on track.

It is healthy to take a deep breath and step back from your business in order to challenge what it is you are trying to achieve and where you sit in the bigger picture. This means being open minded enough to accept constructive challenges to the way you go about things.

So really not knowing what you don't know is only an issue if you never take time to find out and if don't continue to learn and grow!

Karl (see our website)