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Five Obvious (but Uncommon) Methods to Build Great Teams

Five Obvious (but Uncommon) Methods to Build Great Teams

by | Dec 4, 2015 | Business, Career, Leadership, Management, Office Etiquette, Performance, Productivity, World of Work

Whether it is a strategic goal or an operational mandate, the success of every business objective ultimately depends on one and only one factor – How good is your team? The best visionaries and managers can achieve very little if they don’t have a motivated, energized and effective team under them. Great Teams just don’t fall in place automatically, they are built. It takes considerable effort and strategy to build great teams that thrive on challenges and makes work look like fun and a great adventure.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people ~ Lee Iacocca

In my years of being managed in and managing tiny, large, diverse, global and multi-functional teams, I have learnt along the way that there are some pretty obvious methods to build and sustain a high value team of best performers:

Build Great Teams Method #1: Hire for Attitude

We hear this quite a lot but what does it really mean? To me, it means looking for enthusiasm more than expertise, integrity more than degree and thirst for knowledge more than experience. Skills can be taught but it is quite difficult to change behaviors and attitude. Destructive behaviors are very contagious and a few people with a bad attitude can ruin the performance of an entire team no matter how good the rest are. It is important to filter for the best from the start or prune the bad apples the first chance you get.

Build Great Teams Method #2: Give Autonomy (with Accountability)

People are in their best performance “zones” when they find meaning in the work they do. Work is no longer just a job with a salary in today’s global 24/7 environment, it is significantly integrated into our lives. People need to be deeply engaged and feel that they are making progress every day in their lives through their work. One way to do this is to cultivate the concept of entrepreneurship within teams. Assign goals (and not tasks) to your team and give them sufficient autonomy and authority to work towards these goals. “I don’t know” is sometimes the best answer that a leader can give to promote initiative and dynamism within the teams.

Build Great Teams Method #3: Respect (Lots of it)

Cultivate a culture of respect and be a model for it. Promote mentoring within teams and break silos. The best teams discuss, debate and challenge each other on the way to achieving the remarkable while being respectful of each other’s uniqueness. Celebrate this uniqueness and the value that every member of the team brings to the table. When people respect each other, trust in each other’s abilities soon follows and it becomes much easier to make the right decisions to achieve common goals.

Build Great Teams Method #4: Practice Transparency (Enable Communication and Collaboration)

You cannot expect people to operate blind and still give their best output.  Technology has made the sharing of information and the levels of interaction much easier – use this to your and the team’s advantage to ensure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. Free flow of information empowers team to collaborate and enables rapid progress.

Build Great Teams Method #5: Appreciate, Appreciate and Appreciate

Yes, I can’t say this often enough and I am not talking about the carrot and stick approach. Genuinely and sincerely demonstrate that you value your team by thanking them every opportunity that you get. Make it a priority to notice when people are doing things right or are going out of their way to ensure the success of the team. Celebrate this publicly and privately. This lifts people up, it makes people feel safe and that they matter. This in turn frees them up to perform and contribute at their highest levels.

As I mentioned earlier, the methods are pretty obvious but the simplest methods are always the most effective. It surprises and saddens me to see how often managers don’t practice this. Can’t sum this post up better than Tom Peters:

A soaring vision is desirable.

An effective strategy is important.

Super-processes are a necessity.

But in the end, it’s all about … THE PEOPLE!*

*It’s ALWAYS all about

… THE PEOPLE!

What have your experiences been in building and in being part of successful teams? What would you have done better? I would love to know.

Five Ways to Build and Sustain Organizational Culture

Five Ways to Build and Sustain Organizational Culture

by | Jul 30, 2014 | Business, Leadership, Management, Office Etiquette, Performance, World of Work

That mysterious thing called organizational culture – everyone loves discussing this topic. A company is doing well – credit goes to the culture. A company is not doing so well – blame goes to the culture. And it is perhaps true. Culture is critically important to business success, according to 84 percent of the more than 2,200 global participants in the last Booz & Company Survey (Infographic). But what is more surprising is that 96 percent said some form of culture change is needed within their organization with 51 percent believing that their organization is in need of a major culture overhaul. If organization culture is so widely accepted as a critical factor for a company’s success, and people believe the culture needs to change, why is this not happening? I think the problem lies in treating the whole culture thing as a mystery (that is here, there and everywhere, can be sensed but cannot be grasped – you get the drift) or as something that lies in the HR department’s purview (along with other mysterious things like employee engagement, succession planning, etc.).

Wiki defines Organizational culture as “the behavior of humans within an organization and the meaning that people attach to those behaviors. Culture includes the organization’s vision values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits.”

I would interpret this as the “how” in the company. How do we work on a daily basis – how do we interact with each other and with the external world, how do we react or respond to situations, how are our actions guided. I recommend you read “What Is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care? by Michael Watkins” – the post and the comments to see how many different interpretations there are of culture (no wonder it is a mystery).

For all my readers out there who want to delve into this mystery a little more and add to the already high discussion levels on this topic and perhaps bring about culture changes in their own organizations, this post is about building and sustaining company culture from my experiences in two stages of my career – as a team leader in mid-size and large companies and as a small business owner in the third year of leading my company.

Company Culture Builder #1 – Have a clear Vision, Mission and Values statement: This is where you define the culture of the company. It is critical that every employee knows and understands the vision of the organization and the values that it stands for. It needs to be simple enough or made simple enough that everyone in the company can understand them and get aligned to them. The idea here is to get people really involved and committed to the culture – logic and reason have their place, but in initiatives like this the emotions of people have to be tapped – and a clear mission, vision and values statement serves as a great way to bring everyone on the same page.

Company Culture Builder #2 – Hire people who embody these Values: No matter how talented a person is, if you don’t think that the person would be a cultural fit in the organization, resist the temptation and don’t make an offer. The people you hire are your ambassadors for culture, they will be the examples for the next set of hires. As they say, one bad apple spoils the basket – not only do you need to ensure that you hire, promote and reward people not just for skills or performance but for attitude and behaviour that aligns with the culture that you want to foster but also help people who are not aligned to be aligned or move them quickly out of the organization. When valued behaviours are not demonstrated, no matter where he/she is in the hierarchy, there should be consequences that show that such behaviour is no longer acceptable in the organization. This is important to establish accountability.

Company Culture Builder #3 – Understand Culture is not just Top-down: It is side-wise too. Yes, it does start at the top but it happens together – built through everyone’s behaviour and interactions in the team or company. Culture is everyone’s responsibility. Every person in the company should be walking the talk, walking it together, and knowing enough to course correct if some action in the day-to-day operations of the organization does not fit the culture.

Company Culture Builder #4 – Bring Culture in when solving Business Problems: I think this is the best way to bringing the theories to practice, to reducing the whole mystery about culture. When you have an irate customer or a profitability issue or a collaboration issue, that’s the time to do a root cause analysis that also assesses the problem based on what value was or was not used. Did we follow our culture? Were any of our values ignored? Based on what we stand for, what is the right thing to do now? Do we need to change anything in our culture so that this problem does not appear again? These discussions really help in reinforcing the message (and solving the business problem).

Company Culture Builder #5 – Focus less on Perks and more on building Trust and Respect: A cool office, a world-class gym, free food are all good but not at all the main factors that will make a company an employer of choice or build a culture that makes both customers and employees happy. These are short-term motivators only. Enough studies have been done to show that people want to work in an environment where they feel valued, respected and are making a significant contribution to a purpose larger than themselves (meaning). Therefore, creating a strong and healthy organizational culture is more than providing a few services that give a nice shiny surface gloss. Build trust and respect so that when one digs below the surface, one finds a strong and healthy foundation for a great culture.

Taking the digging analogy further, I want to end with these wise words from Edgar Schein, Professor Emeritus with MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of many best sellers including the Corporate Culture Survival Guide :

“Culture operates at many levels and certainly how we do things around here is the surface level. I like to think of culture to be like the lily pond. On the surface you’ve got leaves and flowers and things that are very visible; a visitor would see them. That’s the ‘how we do things around here;’ but the explanation of why we do things in that way forces you to look at the root system, what’s feeding it and the history of the pond, who planted what. If you don’t dig down into the reasons for why we do things this way you’ve only looked at the culture at a very superficial level and you haven’t really understood it.”

How would you define company culture? What do you think are the key factors to build and sustain a great company culture? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Five Key Considerations for Successful Project Management – Operational Excellence

Five Key Considerations for Successful Project Management – Operational Excellence

by | Sep 14, 2013 | Business, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

Who is a Project Manager?  A simple answer would be: Any person who has a team and is expected to deliver an output, given a set of requirements.  A typical Project Manager is often under pressure from the management, customers, third party vendors and the team members.

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies. (Wiki)

Successful Project Management entails achieving all the project goals while remaining within the constraints of scope, time, quality and budget. It is not an easy job – but definitely a very fulfilling and rewarding one. A Project Manager needs to balance many aspects carefully to achieve the project objectives. From my many years of managing projects and project teams globally, I put together this list of key considerations that a project manager always needs to keep his focus on. The following aspects are from practical experience and hence I believe these would resonate well with practicing managers.

Consideration #1 – Forming the Right Team:  80% of the Projects fail due to lack of right team. Assuming the estimations are done well, the project manager should strive to get the right team based on the project type, including system architects, development and test leads and a solid configuration management expert.  The critical roles should never be compromised – for example, if you need a carpenter, “you need a carpenter” and a plumber cannot be “adjusted” into that role.  Of course there are businesses realities, but the delivery Manager needs to aggressively push for the “right” team. Also, the core team should be intact throughout the duration of the project (or as far as possible).

Consideration #2 – Commitment to Customer:  It is essential that the manager sensitizes the team that release plans once locked-in are sacrosanct. On-time delivery is key. Hence it is extremely important that the entire team is fully aligned to the customer’s requirements.  The manager must develop an in-depth understanding of not only the current activity/project, but also get a good understanding of the customer’s product road map.  The goal is to become a true partner for the customer through excellence in delivery and technical depth/product understanding.

Consideration #3 – Dashboard driven: Metrics can be overwhelming and hence should be viewed as dash-board (aka cockpit panel or a car dashboard). This will provide the right amount of information to know if the project is under control. Standard metrics like schedule/effort variance are of course essential.  In addition, customer satisfaction and various productivity measures needs to be tracked. It is also extremely important that the project management is aligned to the business goals. The project manager has to understand all the parameters that impact the project profitability and gets a regular view of the profitability of the project against target.

Consideration #4 – Never Surprise your stake-holders: It is extremely important to keep open and regular communication both within the team and with the customer (say steering group meeting).  Just sending Weekly status report is not sufficient. E-mail should not be the ONLY means of communication. If it is important and deserves an immediate attention, please pick-up the phone and CALL.  I have not seen any case where phone calls are over-used.  Never delay bad news. Also bad news should be accompanied by recovery plan, impact etc.  The bottom line is surprises should be avoided.  Examples of common surprises – Communicating to the customer about a delay in the release on the date of release, informing the finance team that there will be a 20% revenue drop for the current month, etc.

Consideration #5 – “Thinking” Plan-B:  The changing dynamics in the project makes the manager’s role extremely challenging and it is important that the manager does not get into the Panic mode. It is imperative that the Manager “thinks” ahead of the team and is able to predict potential issues and be prepared with alternate approaches (often called plan-B). Proper Risk planning and management is absolutely necessary. This will give greatly improve manager’s confidence in dealing with risks/issues and be prepared for all outcomes.

The above points are some the key learning from my own mistakes and also from the multiple projects managers I have worked-with across many counties. I am sure there are many more considerations that would help in mastering project management, but I believe the above five practical and simple considerations would be among the most critical ones required in project management. No matter what certifications we posses, nothing can beat hands-on experience!  Also, no matter how experienced anyone is, there is always plenty to learn in Project Management!!!

G Krishna Kumar is a Vice President in a leading global software company with many years of experience in managing large global programs for software products and services delivery. He is also an avid writer and blogger and blogs on Telecom, IT and Education related topics at http://bloggerkrishnak.blogspot.in/ . Views are personal.

What is your learning from your project management experience? What other consideration/s do you believe are critical to ensure the success of a project? Krishna and I would love to hear back from you.

 Pic Courtesy : http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-08/

Five Key Considerations for Efficient Knowledge Management – Business Operations Performance Management

Five Key Considerations for Efficient Knowledge Management – Business Operations Performance Management

by | Apr 27, 2013 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest ~ Benjamin Franklin

What is knowledge? Is it the information we gather from various sources available in today’s always-on and seamlessly connected world? Is it the data we deal with in our daily life?

Well, not really! Data is the raw material used to create information. Information is just data in context. Information and Data are not Knowledge until we know how to extract value out of it. Knowledge is the understanding the significance of Information, filtered through people’s skills acquired through experience, and trends and patterns.

How we extract value out of available data and information, and how we club this with lessons learnt through experiences, ideas and competencies, is where knowledge management comes into play.

Knowledge management is the disciplined approach to achieve organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, sharing of lessons learnt and continuous improvement by managing knowledge as a strategic asset. It focuses on processes such as identifying, creating, representing, sharing knowledge and enabling adoption of insights and experiences.  It is a dynamic approach as Knowledge depends on how, when, and from where it is acquired.

Organizations now clearly believe that Intellectual capital is a strategic and valuable asset that can be managed as effectively as physical assets which will set them apart from their competitors and drive their success.

So, how do we establish Knowledge Management and its underlying philosophies within an organization? The key is in bringing cultural change within the organization by making it knowledge based, working with people to increase their ability in the organization to influence others with their knowledge and encouraging free flow of ideas.

Here are five key considerations to take into account to set up an efficient Knowledge management framework in the organization:

 Consideration #1 : Identify the Key drivers for KM

 Key drivers for KM are:

  • Mergers/ Acquisitions/ Downsizing
  • Employee Attrition
  • Globalization

According to data from Deallogic, U.S. companies have spent $219 billion on mergers and acquisitions so far (February) in 2013, a sharp increase from 2012, when firms spent just $85 billion during the same period. And U.S. firms are slated to have the biggest year in M&A activity since 2000.

In such an environment, it becomes highly important to manage different knowledge models of two organizations getting merged or involved in acquisition. And if the merger is between the companies who were formerly competitors, the strategic alliances that are formed between competitors to pursue an opportunity, the workforce, the changes in technology, global teams and diverse stakeholders, are just a few of challenges we face without a proper KM framework in place.

Employees who leave the organization take their knowledge with them which actually results in Knowledge attrition for the organization.  And there a challenge is to establish a system for knowledge transfer or transition before employee exit to avoid the cost of ramping up new employees. In absence of knowledge assets, learning curve for new employees becomes even more difficult.

Global culture and global environments necessitate virtual teams – this demands knowledge sharing and seamless accessibility to the stored knowledge irrespective of location. E-learning is one of the effective mediums for managing knowledge across the globe.

Identifying the key drivers for KM in the organization helps in arriving at the mission and the appropriate frameworks that best fit the organization.

 Consideration #2 : Focus on What Values KM can add

 Many successful organizations fail to realize full value from their investments in projects by not learning lessons in the process. This further means that organizations then fail to continue those processes that were successful in the process and fail to discontinue those that resulted in errors and rework ~Ernst & Young (2007)

Every project/process offers several learning opportunities to generate knowledge and increase both individual competencies and organizational assets. A creative approach to KM can result in improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenue. Structured knowledge management provides the following business benefits:

  • Improved customer satisfaction with fastest response times
  • Ideas can be shared and innovation encouraged
  • Decision making is improved with access to facts and past experiences
  • Enhanced Cross team communication and inter functional problem solving
  • Redundant processes and process handling are reduced, hence business operations becomes more effective and margins improve
  • Ultimately revenues increase by getting services and products faster to the market

Business operations performance improvement and revenue gains as a result of KM are indicated by numerous organizations, for e.g. Ford Motor accelerated its concept-to-production time from 36 months to 24 months and the flow on value of this has been estimated at US $1.25 billion, The Dow Chemical Company saved $40 million a year in the re-use of patents, Chase Manhattan, one of the largest banks in the US, used Customer relationship management KM initiatives to increase its annual revenue by 15%, and Pfizer credits KM practices for discovering the hidden benefits of the Viagra drug.

Look at the processes in your organization and identify the specific benefits in the short and long-term that knowledge management could bring in to the business. It is important to tie in the knowledge management initiative to measurable impact to gain agreement and support from key stakeholders in the organization.

 Consideration #3 : Define clear objectives of KM

Before you jump into KM, you must first gain clarity on what you are doing and why and then spread the awareness around the objectives. The message should be absolutely clear without any ambiguities which will help in building strong trust and credibility. Creating a successful brand around a KM initiative takes a lot of effort – the cultural immune system of any organization is highly volatile when it comes to knowledge sharing and collaboration. The main factor that contributes to the volatility is the fact that technology is breaking the barriers and conventional hierarchy is losing its influence. People take the “knowledge is power” adage too seriously and hoard the knowledge sometimes – thinking that sharing the knowledge would result in loss of their control or influence. KM is all about bringing cultural change. Hence it is important to define the objectives and build the awareness and enthusiasm around these to make people more comfortable to become active participants of the KM initiative. Motivating people by recognizing the value of employee’s knowledge and by rewarding them for it not only benefits KM but also improves employee retention rates.

As per International Data Corp (IDC), following are the top objectives for knowledge management initiatives:

  • Capture and share best practices
  • Enhance internal collaboration
  • Improve Customer relationship management
  • Better Competitive intelligence
  • Build Intellectual capital

 Consideration #4 : Ensure data accuracy and completeness

Data quality is a critical aspect of knowledge management, source and accessibility of data to KM  should happen in a defined and structured manner.  If the quality of data is questionable, the value of data goes down and if major decisions are made based on this data, these actions may wrongly influence organization’s objectives. Data is a valuable organizational asset and should be managed carefully by ensuring adequate quality, integrity, security, availability and effective usage.

Assess the current state at each stage of the Process and define guidelines for right data, right time and right tools and infrastructure to arrive at high quality and accurate data for your KM initiative.

 

Consideration #5 : Earn a strong Fan Base to drive KM acceptance

Buy in from people at all levels is required for knowledge management to be a success. Creating a strong case study on the benefits of using KM helps – Identify a willing group and implement a set of initiatives around KM (e.g. Knowledge Map, Build taxonomy to capture the K- Map, Identify SMEs, and scout for content and disseminate the same) and build a story around the same. This will be like a story board where the user narrates a live example of a crisis or some critical situation and how KM has intervened and helped. Also create a picture of current state and the desired state and how this gap is narrowed down by implementing a structured KM. For example the project can be an application maintenance services for a client. The kind of skills required (L1, L2 etc) in terms of managing the applications, number of tickets generated around each of the technology area within the application and resolving the customer issues can noted down. Now bring in the KM system and process and observe the change like reduction in number of tickets, L1 person handling L2 tickets etc. Map the same to productivity numbers. This has a high impact as people can relate to their own situation and will be open to try KM out.

Use Metrics wisely. A perfect blend of qualitative and quantitative metrics should be available to the management to assess the current level of improvement – either top line (revenue) or bottom-line (customer satisfaction through higher productivity). This justifies the investment that an organization is making in terms of resources and technology infrastructure that supports the KM framework. Theorizing the intangible nature and value of Knowledge Management will not convince the leaders as much as measurable indicators that prove the business benefits will.

In summary, every organization wants to perform at its best in delivering products and services with enhanced gross margins, reduced cycle times and in maintaining consistently delighted, satisfied customers. Knowledge Management can act as one of the catalysts in speeding up the process of achieving these organizational objectives.

The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness with which the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization to deal with today’s situations and effectively envision and create their future – Gene Bellinger

What are your experiences with KM setup in your organizations? What challenges have you faced in KM establishment?    Would love to hear and learn from you.

 T0day’s post is a collaborative effort with Kavita Verma and Ramprakash L – both of whom are SMEs in this area. Thank you, Kavita and Ram for your inputs.

Five Strategies to shift from a Cost Cutting to a Business Growth mindset through Operational Excellence – Business Operations

Five Strategies to shift from a Cost Cutting to a Business Growth mindset through Operational Excellence – Business Operations

by | Nov 20, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

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Do more with less is a common refrain in any margin focused organization. But this management guidance should come with a big “Handle with Care” sticker. In the enthusiasm to meet cost cutting targets, sometimes organizations forget the “doing more” part and only focus on the “with less” part. By the time, the realization sets in that the growth engine has stalled, it is too late. And most likely, you are left with an organizational culture where “fear” rules supreme and “fun” is a word that belongs outside the work-place. Result – Bottom line improves in the short-term but starts declining after reaching a threshold. With stagnant or diminishing top-line, no amount of cost cutting can help improve profits dramatically after a certain point.

High performance is multi-dimensional – putting the entire organization’s focus on just costs is counter-productive. While margin improvement is crucial, good solid revenue growth is even more important to build a sustainable, profitable business. And these two goals should not be in conflict with each other. With some discipline and mindset changes enforced in day-to-day business operations, one can successfully do the balancing act so that the organization does not lose its focus on growing revenues while keeping a tight control on costs.

The entire business framework that you work in can be used to influence changes in the right direction. Here are five strategies that I have seen business leaders use successfully to shift the organization to a revenue growth mindset in no particular order:

Strategy 1: Budgeting – Put your money where growth is – The key to building a high-performance and growth focused culture is to make sure you consider “‘what“ and “how“ you will get to your destination – the clear guidelines of what you need to do now to reach where you want to be in a specific timeline. And, what better place to define this than in your annual business budget. For example what are the core competencies that you need to develop in the current year so that the growth for the next two-three years are secured? What investments of the previous year have not achieved desired results and needs a change in strategy? What partners and channels needed to be cultivated in current year to be able to stay competitive in the market? While a lot of attention is given on the cost items to achieve the top line for the current year, not much attention is given to the few investments that are needed to accelerate the growth for the longer term. Budgeting is a great tool to ensure that the organization is well prepared and aligned for growth.

Strategy 2: Granularity of Growth – Identify the Growth Drivers –  Research shows that having multiple avenues to growth pays off during good times and bad.  In the book – Granularity of Growth (Wiley, April 2008), the authors identified that increased market-share is seldom a driver of growth. They contend, instead, that growth is driven by where a company chooses to compete: which market segments it participates in and how much merger-and-acquisition activity it pursues in these markets. The key is to focus on granularity, to breakdown big-picture strategy into its smallest relevant components. To uncover pockets of opportunity, executives need to dig down to deeper levels of their businesses and organizations. And of course, get the execution plan in place for the opportunities identified.

Strategy 3: Clarion Call – Aligning the Organization to the Vision – It is critical that every employee knows and understands the vision of the organization and the strategy for growth. Re-orienting people is not an easy job but it can be done if the leadership can clearly articulate the problem statement behind the vision and the urgent changes that are needed to get everyone on the board. The idea here is to get people really involved and committed to growth – logic and reason have their place, but in initiatives like this the emotions of people have to be tapped. Hence the need for a clarion call (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clarion_call – Appeal, urgent call to action).  And also the need for a re-organization too – to move your best people (sales, operations, delivery) from low growth or stagnant business areas to high growth areas to leverage your talent and shake off the inertia.

Strategy 4: Platform for Ideas – Make Innovation more than a buzz word – Innovation is the Petri dish for exponential growth. But without a specific team accountable for innovation (which could be new product ideas, new business models, new markets, new acquisitions or new competencies) the focus on exponential growth is lost in the day-to-day block and tackle for meeting the short-term business targets. One person in the senior leadership should have the mandate to lead this team and the authority to champion and approve initiatives that are separate from the company’s core business and to execute on these initiatives. This provides an ecosystem of a structure, time and resources for a “start-up” within the larger organization to help move beyond the comfort zone and also future-proof the business against risks to existing business.

Strategy 5: Metrics and Rewards –Targets breed Performance – Coming to my favorite topic, setting metrics and commensurate rewards is an important lever to quickly drive and arrive at the behavior needed to go beyond just incremental growth.  For example – setting a target of 5% revenue growth year on year with a slightly higher target for profits is quite acceptable but this can be achieved by a little more push on existing services or products. There is no compelling need to look for completely new sources of revenue or new business models. What is needed here is BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals), metrics that can be used to track and measure not only the results but the investments, resources and behaviors that are needed to achieve the goals and of course, equally Big rewards to excite and enthuse the teams to think differently, get out of their comfort zone and act like entrepreneurs.

Profitable double-digit growth can become a possibility and not just a fluke. By thinking proactively and building growth into day-to-day business operations, the cost cutting trap can be avoided. A growth oriented mindset can indeed become part of the organization culture when the management plans and puts in place the systems to ensure that growth opportunities are identified and pursued as diligently as costs are controlled.

What have I missed? What growth strategies have you seen work? How and what have you factored in your plans for next year to enable double-digit growth? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Picture courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ytueresburroyyomemonto/2687124044/

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