Ten Ways To Success vs. Ten Ways To Suck
Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, CTP
CEO | Interim CEO/COO/CRO/GM | Advisor | Operating Partner l Board Member | Transformational Fixer I Growth & Change | Turnaround & Restucturing | Performance & Profit | Certified Turnaround Professional | American ????
With the exception of grossly overstaffed organizations, it is a rookie mistake to think you can shrink to growth, or as Tom Peters famously said, "shrink to greatness."
It seldom works, for a variety of reasons. If you lose great people, lose customers, lose strategic and competitive advantage, you will always lose revenue and profits. Why? Because you've lost your way being focused more on things that don't matter as much as things that do matter.
The companies that lead their categories and are standout brands:
1. invest in the getting the right people aboard
2. constantly develop, improve and refine their products/services
3. have a passion for team involvement
4. offer a balance of quality and value
5. understand that price is a market signal
6. prioritize contribution margin and profit on products/services
7. reduce waste
8. engage market forces
9. leverage opinion leadership
10. drive operational efficiency
These are your steps to SUCCESS.
It is inexperienced leadership that thinks that cuts for the sake of cuts, fear, workforce hatcheting, and keeping a plan close to the vest is going to accomplish near or long term goals.
If you want to drive growth, positive morale and exceptional interactions with all stakeholders - not just customers, but vendors and supply chain, your customer's customer, and end users - but most importantly - your own people - you have to be a culture that places priority on forgiveness, not permission.
And as our founder, Six-time Fortune 100/500 CEO Jim Malone famously said, "culture is determined by the worst behavior the organization tolerates."
If the worst employee in your organization is at the top. You're doomed.
The "my way or the highway" dictatorship never works.
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Of the hundreds of businesses that Qorval has worked on in 28 years, there are several common denominators that had previously driven those companies to the brink of failure, such as:
1. inexperienced leadership
2. weak governance
3. lack of passion/vision
4. lack of investment in sales and marketing
5. managerial myopia/analysis paralysis/inaction
6. poor controls
7. lack of relationships with customers
8. disregard for stakeholders - vendors, trade partners, distributors
9. stale products and services
10. ignoring margins/contribution margin
Another way to look at this is that these are, unequivocally, your ten sure ways to get to the point where your company sucks.
Choose the success, not the suck.
Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, CTP, is the CEO & Managing Partner of QORVAL Partners, LLC, a FL-based advisory firm (founded 1996 by Jim Malone, six-time Fortune 100/500 CEO) Qorval is a US-based turnaround, restructuring, business optimization and interim management firm. Fioravanti is a proven turnaround CEO with experience in more than 90 situations in more than 40 industries. He earned his MBA and MPA from the University of Rhode Island and completed advanced post-master’s research in finance and marketing at Bryant University. He is a Certified Turnaround Professional and member of the Turnaround Management Association, the Private Directors Association, Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Association of Merger & Acquisition Advisors (AM&MA), the American Bankruptcy Institute, and IMCUSA. Copyright 2024, Qorval Partners LLC and/or Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, CTP.
All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution without permission.
Choose the success.