Seeing the Forest through the Trees—Five ways to positively transform your business while managing through today’s business challenges.

You’ve all heard this one before. Think of your business as a forest and your employees, customers, business challenges and successes are all represented as the trees. Seeing through the forest on any day is difficult and when the forest is on fire—almost impossible…

As I continuously read books and business publications, network with various industry experts and learn from the informational content found on Linked In and other social media platforms I am both amazed and stunned by the massive volume of new and different thinking taking place, around us, about the world of work. I see and read creative and innovative idea thinking, pro-employee advantage and engagement thinking, proactive business operational thinking and yes, even customer centric thinking. It’s all very exciting to hear and learn about. This is truly a different day as it relates to changing work (for the better) and how we as operators can benefit and help to make it happen.

And then I go out and do the work of my firm…and despite all the great things and good news found in the literature and social media, my work inside of businesses and organizations keeps telling me that the message is not being received everywhere and when it is being received—it’s often very slow taking root and bringing about the needed change that leadership (my clients) so desire. 

“Why is this?” All businesses have potential and they can control a large stake in their own success by investing in people, infrastructure, information technology and other advancements meant to create positive change and drive better, greater, faster results. But I don’t see that happening. So, my question really is, “why is it not happening in most industries and only being infused oh so slowly in others? All this great wisdom, ready to be used, borne out of trial and error and accompanied by credible research and expertise that has done the work and proven the case for moving ahead—but still considered too dangerous or difficult to manage towards for business leaders.

And then it hit me…the old “can’t see the forest through the trees” metaphor. I recognized that businesses cannot get past the day to day responsibilities and fire drills that occasionally erupt, long enough to see their way to a better future. It’s as if senior executives, business owners and leadership teams all need to win at the game they are playing in order to clear the way to the next step, or new game that awaits them. This is a problem as meaningful change takes time and time is the only thing we cannot get more of. Once it’s gone, we’ve lost it. Every day we wait for something different to happen or procrastinate results in a missed opportunity. 

If delivering greater results is the ultimate indicator of success and the one non-negotiable metric that governs our ability to change, then how do we deliver upon that metric? Here are five key actions that any organization can implement to create the on-going change necessary to revitalize your culture, reinvigorate your company and achieve the annualized goals you’ve been focused on. Most important, you can take all of these steps and make them work for you while still managing your current workload and daily responsibilities:

1) Start to culturally rebuild your company by simplifying the foundational data (mission, vision, core behaviors, strategic initiatives) that defines success for your organization. You can do this by making it accessible and understandable to everyone on the team. Every company needs a vision and mission statement that is direct and simple. Something that can be recited by every employee when asked at any time. Additionally, you will also need to establish a set of “core behaviors” that outline the minimal behavioral standards expected of everyone on the team. Having non-negotiable behaviors are the easiest way to determine who is serious about being a member of your team and a good fit culturally with your company. You either follow these or you aren’t going to be part of the team going forward.

2) To successfully solve any operational issue, start by aligning the daily tasks and activities of every one on the team with the strategic objectives of the company. You must get your people focused on the key outcomes that will most frequently drive your business’ success. This will require the translation of strategic initiatives throughout every layer of the organization. This will take time and a little bit of work, but in the end will get to the “how to do this” for every member of the team. Once they know how their actions directly relate to and impact the success of the company—they understand and have the knowledge necessary to act in the company’s best interest and share in the leadership of the team.

3) Provide clarity of purpose for every role in the organization. This does not have to be a long drawn out process approved by and governed by human resources. All that you are looking for is the establishment of primary job responsibilities (a.k.a. “what does the company count on you doing in order for it to be successful?”) for every one on the team. In most cases these will be three to five responsibilities that tell each team member, “when I do these things well, I will have done my job and positively impacted the company”. Knowing and understanding job responsibilities clearly will guarantee that your leadership teams will spend less time overseeing and more time directing.

4) Break down silos and other barriers to communication that allow team members to build trust and collaborate better with each other. This is accomplished by setting up regular (monthly) meetings between every manager and their direct reports, where they meet for 30-45 minutes each time to discuss how the direct report is performing and what both people can do to help improve the individual performance of the direct report. Do not make these meetings “monthly performance reviews”, rather make them a “check-in” that allows for increased communication through positive conversation that builds trust between the two parties and provides coaching, feedback and mentoring support. Most importantly, the direct report is told how they’re currently doing and what they need to do in order to do it better or what they can do to be promoted within the organization. 

5) The monthly meetings in no. 4, that note progress, must be documented and made available to leadership in order to allow for decisions to be made in real time. When all the company’s objectives are directly made a part of each team member’s responsibilities you not only know who is contributing towards their achievement, you know without question, whether or not you are going to achieve the strategic objective it is connected to. This really comes down to simple math. When you have the right people aligned with the right goals that propel your success—your chances of achieving them are increased several-fold. And monthly performance data, from your team, will tell you just how well you are progressing. After doing this you will never have to fret over or worry about the annual employee appraisal process as you will have twelve months of data that will provide accurate and meaningful information to successfully drive that process.   

In summary: When fully implemented and taken seriously, these five key actions will serve to “thin out the trees” (past business challenges) and shed light on how you can move your company forward, rapidly replacing convention with new wisdom changing both business and personal outcomes for the better. Watch your business be transformed.  

Monte Pedersen is the Principal of The CDA Group, a unique leadership and training firm that specializes in strategy execution management, an operations-based system and process that positively changes the behaviors of individual managers and teams across all disciplines. They specialize in developing leaders at all levels of an organization while creating greater accountability and achieving more consistent operating results. They can be reached via website at www.ClarifyDeployAchieve.com