Empowering People

One massive challenge I witness is the ability of organisations and leaders to empower their staff. Make it safe for people to make decisions. When they don't it creates bottlenecks and business can not move forward as much. Here are the only 5 questions you staff need to answer to make a decision without you.

1. Is it right for the customer?
2. Is it right for the company?
3. Is it ethical?
4. Is it something you would be willing to be held accountable for?
5. Is it consistent with the Company's values?

If the answer to all 5 is yes then - DON'T ASK - JUST DO IT

Understanding the "Core Values" of Honesty and Integrity

Often I hear that Honesty and Integrity are core values - as they should be. Would you ever Hire someone who wasn't honest or exhibited Integrity? How often though have you employed someone to be disappointed on these values.

The challenge is that you need to go to a deeper level so your people can understand what it really means in your organisation. The words are like the outer layer of an onion and you need to peel back the layers until you get to the real "core" of the definition for your company.

In our company "Live what we teach" defines Integrity for me. We have a client who is a painting contractor that has "3 coats means 3 coats". Isn't this a lot easier for his staff to understand than Integrity.

The difinitions are different for every company. What does the inside of your onion look like for Honesty and Integrity in your company.

Where is the Pain?

Right now Canterbury Business owners are looking at how they can survive a prolonged decrease in revenue. In a lot of cases the hard decisions to cut staff or overheads has been left too late and now there are not so many options as they could have had a few months ago as part of a planned approach.

On average it seems that revenue across most industries has declined by 30-40% and it is likely the market recovery is going to be slow. So how do you operate and grow in a consumers market where your competitors are competing on price? How do you get more productivity from less staff? How do you ensure marketing is effective given the fact you have a far smaller advertising budget?

Now the bad news.......there is no magic bullet that will solve this. It takes a good long term strategy, well targeted short and medium terms goals, a focused offering to the market with a unique point of difference and it takes good communication, staff 90 day goals, accountability across the company and measurement of the relevant KPI's.

That takes skill and planning and the real value is being able to execute these things and make them happen rather than simply come up with a plan.

Take some action and make it happen. Oh and have fun.....it is too easy to get lost in the doom & stress.

Karl