Leadership – November 2008
Get Back on Track
Reaffirm strategy and priority.
by Bob Prosen
WHEN GREAT LEADERS
and companies
get off track, they recognize
the problems and get back on track
quickly. When you stray, how can you
get back into the winner’s circle?
• You need to reaffirm the strategy and
top priorities, put the right people in
the right jobs, with clear objectives and
measurements to track performance.
• Assign ownership to key people and
require them to focus on the vital few
objectives. You’ll lose focus if you take
on too many responsibilities.
• Be clear about what you’re asking
people to do. Eliminate false starts.
Give them objectives derived from
deep thinking. When you communicate
clearly, make requests of people, and
get commitments, you make progress.
• Have a measurement system to track
progress on your top objectives. These
measurements act as an early-warning
system, enabling you to reprioritize
and take corrective action as needed.
• Discover the root cause of every problem
so that you don’t waste valuable
resources fighting the same problems.
This inefficiency generates unnecessary
costs and prevents you from focusing
on what’s most important to move forward
and accelerate profitability.
You can use these steps to turn
around companies, close more sales,
reduce overtime, improve on-time
delivery, turn loss into profit, increase
employee and customer satisfaction.
Ask 11 Questions
Ask yourself these 11 questions:
1. Do you have the right strategy and
top objectives, supported by the management
team? Your strategy must provide
clear direction in concise language
that’s easily understood by all and produce
sufficient profits.
2. Do you surround yourself with
smarter people? Are your direct reports
giving you ideas that you never knew
were possibilities? Given the choice,
would you pick those people again to
be on your team in the same positions?
Use these criteria to build your team.
3. Do you have formal monthly
operations review meetings? This is an effective way to instill accountability
and achieve objectives. It’s the perfect
forum to review results, remove roadblocks,
ask for assistance, and hold
people accountable for results.
4. Do you keep people focused on
achieving the top objectives? Have you
identified your top objectives, and do
people know them and see how what
they’re doing helps achieve them?
Communicate objectives, hold people
accountable, and visibly post key
objectives and performance so everyone
knows how they’re doing daily.
Meet regularly with your teams to discuss
progress against goals.
5. Do you manage people
too closely? If so, back off
and learn to delegate. Let
people do their jobs.
However, when things go
off course, address problems
and correct the situation.
It’s not fair for good
people to be burdened with
the incompetent. When you
need to make personnel changes, do it.
Cut the dead wood. Don’t rationalize.
6. Are you helping people prioritize
actions in alignment with key objectives? Everyone wants to do it all, but
you can’t. Help the organization triage
initiatives and give them permission to
stop doing a number of tasks.
7. Are meetings effective? Pop into
meetings and listen. Are people solving
problems and talking about things they
can do to move the company forward,
or are they focused on complaints,
excuses, and extraneous issues? Explain
how to effectively conduct meetings
focused on achieving results and hold
people accountable for improvement.
8. Are you watching for team members
who are focused internally, not
externally? Be aware of negative politics
that show up in e-mails, meetings,
hallways, and break rooms. When you
hear people talking about what’s best for
me instead of what’s best for the company,
nip it in the bud. Focus behavior on the
success of the team. Recognize and reward
individual performance in context
with how it supports company goals.
9. Are you asking people what they
need to succeed? When you ask someone
to do something and give them a
deadline, also ask them if they have
everything they need to make that deadline. If not, deal with it immediately.
When people fail to meet goals or
deadlines, ask what actions you can
take and what’s required from others?
10. Are you watching for busywork? Attend to staff and other functions, such
as accounting, HR, and IT. Are they
engaging in non-essential work and
generating unnecessary reports instead
of actions that support top objectives?
11. Have you run out of time to plan? Are you running to keep up, missing
commitments, attending too many
meetings, being reactive instead of
proactive? Do you regularly take vacation?
Does everyone come to you for
answers? The devil is in the details. It’s
time to release some of those details.
Make the Right Decisions
Make decisions that have the biggest
impact. If you’re involved in small
decisions, you’re not working
on the right things.
Here’s how you fix it:
1. Determine your top
three priorities. Write them
and keep them on your
desk to avoid distractions.
2. Delegate more. Delegation
is not abdication.
You don’t turn your back.
Stay involved at appropriate
points until your goals are realized.
After you reprioritize, schedule time
for planning and for thinking about
the Big Picture and the Next Big Thing.
Institutionalizing Success
To achieve extraordinary performance
and profit, you must demonstrate
relentless pursuit of vision; show an
unyielding commitment; face tough
realities; avoid excuses and rationalization;
recognize the distinction between
profit and cash flow versus revenue
and growth; surround yourself with
experts; have clear objectives; have
accurate and timely metrics to evaluate
performance; act quickly to overcome
problems as they arise; run lean; build
a culture based on accountability and
focused on execution; encourage a free
flow of information; remain flexible;
adapt readily to change; reward results,
not activity; and have a support group.
Sustaining and accelerating highperformance results and profitability provides your company with choices unavailable to competitors. At the start of the day, it’s all about possibilities. At the end of the day, it’s about results. LE
Bob Prosen is author of Kiss Theory Good Bye and president of
The Prosen Center for Business Advancement. Visit www.kisstheorygoodbye.
com or www.bobprosen.com or call 972-899-2180.
ACTION: Get back on track.