11 Keys to Clarity and Focus in Your Business

While it may seem like a “blinding flash of the obvious”, there are some CEOs and business owners who do not understand the importance of focus and clarity within their business.

Clarity defines responsibilities and sets boundaries and expectations. When personal responsibility and ownership exist, creativity, energy and power are released. When not present, people seek freedom. This results in blame, excuses, turf battles and “us vs. them” thinking.

Here are 11 areas to look at so you can create complete clarity in every area of your organization:

1.    Vision, mission and values – It is one thing to have posters on the wall and it is an entirely different thing to understand exactly what those words mean to every person in every role in the organization and to the company as whole. Discuss the meaning of your vision, mission and values and how it impacts each person.

2.   Boundaries – Every team member needs to know what the boundaries are within the organization so they do not exceed them and so they can operate within the acceptable parameters of the company.

3.   Responsibility – Each employee of any organization needs to have a clear understanding of precisely what they are responsible for, why they are responsible for those things and how they will be held accountable to those responsibilities.

4.   Expectations for both the performer and the manager – Every person in every company must understand what the expectations are for their role, and this includes managers. Like all other areas, expectations must be communicated clearly and explicitly, not just implied.

5.   All customers including both internal and external – Internal customers need to know who they are supposed to work with and go to for answers and why, as well as what resources they have and don’t have. External customers need to understand clearly what you offer and why you offer the products or services you do. This allows the company to translate the relevance of your offerings to each external customer and why they should care.

6.   Skill levels – Everyone on the team needs to know the exact skill levels of each member working toward a corporate or organizational goal. There can be no “sandbagging” with people not sharing what they know and how they can help with their experience. Additionally, each person needs to know the difference their skills make to the actual work produced.

7.    Resources and assets to be leveraged – What resources are available and what assets exist within the company (to contribute to the achievement of organizational goals) need to be clear to every member of the team at every level. This cannot be information that is “guarded” by either managers or specific people within the company who think they know best.

8.   Personal goals written and displayed – Each member of any organizational team needs to have specific, written goals for their individual contribution, which should be tied to the goals of the organization. They need to be displayed, discussed and each person should be held accountable.

9.   How to be a high performer – For any person to understand how to exceed past, best performance, they first must have clarity on what exactly it is they need to do in order to be a high performer. Some people have the desire and even the ability to be a high performer, and yet, they simply don’t know what they need to do to make that happen. This message must be communicated from management in a clear, concise manner.

10. Definition of inspired performance – Remarkably, many workplaces do not ever explicitly communicate a clear, distinct, understandable definition of high performance. For a person to unleash their creativity, innovation, productive capacity and focus on achievement, they have to know what it is they are aspiring to achieve.

11. Accurate scorekeeping and feedback – Everyone needs to know what their score is, and feedback should be given and be accessible in real time. It is difficult for any person, no matter what their role, to get excited about achieving more when they don’t know what the score is on a day-to-day basis. Make scoreboards in every department for your company and define metrics people can understand and work toward.

Utilizing these tools will lead to a workplace that has clarity and is focused on how to achieve their goals. It brings people together when everyone understands what their role is and that they are a part of something larger than themselves.

Michael L. Stahl

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