What's Your Edge? 4S

Edges. We've all heard the cliché’ expressions about edges. What kinds of edges does your organization have? Does your organization have cutting edges, bleeding edges, leading edges, dull edges, invisible edges or moving edges?

Does your company have any edges at all?

Does your company – and your team, have any real, meaningful competitive edge over the competition?

Do your employees have edges at work = are they edgy in their behavior with each other, and does your company seem edgy in interacting with product and or service customers?

is your marketing edgy?

Is your culture passionate or pathetic?

Does your company even have an edge on the people that you compete with, or is the sharp edge of competitive intensity and competitive headwinds cutting your organizational arteries?

4S is different from 5S. Think about four particular benefits that your employees are looking for - I'm not talking about health care or long-term disability or a vision plan or a section 125 plan - rather, about the benefits that they get by being a part of your organizational culture. What do they get in the transactional relationship from exchanging your money for their time?

A good place to start is what I call the 4S's: safety, sanctity, stability and sustainability.

While we could all argue that there is little stability in the workforce of today, employees do seek and value some stability and predictability so that they can move on with their lives, and they can make life choices such as starting a family, acquiring a home, getting that new minivan perhaps, or even taking a vacation.

Employees don't tend to want to make those kinds of commitments when they feel that their employment is so unstable. They want to work in a sustainable organization, not a company bleeding cash or an underfunded startup struggling to make payroll, if they are even getting paid. They want sustainability from their employer.

As a disgruntled employee in an organization we turned around a few years ago said to me, "when you guys left and they hired new people at the top, quickly the employees didn't feel warm and fuzzy about the president. We all realized about 30 days in that we we working for an idiot."

My response: The problem is, "he's their idiot."

That's an uncontrollable. What happens? Customers flee, employees leave, sales tank.

Fake it till you make it is straight up BS. You can't plug in people who have no clue what they are doing and think for a minute that the employees aren't going to rapidly assess the organizational deficiencies under a glaring lack of leadership. In short, there is simply no substitute for experience.

Think for a minute about safety - employees want to feel and should rightfully feel safe at work, given the instability in the world nowadays. Employers need to make sure that they are hiring the right people that continue to ensure a safe environment at work, and that means different things ideologically to different people. If a potential hire is a potential red flag, they are best to be avoided. Truthfully, even when you use recruiters and background check people, it’s nearly impossible to know who they will turn out to be once they are aboard in the organization.

Sanctity is very much related to both stability and safety, and sanctity means that it's an environment to work in that is comfortable, but challenging and rewarding and treats employees well, and has a great culture. Just as customers and clients want to deal with people they know and like and respect, likewise, coworkers and internal customers and clientele want those mutually beneficial and professional and respectful relationships with their peers.

All of these really roll up into one S, security. Our founder, six-time Fortune 500 CEO Jim Malone once taught me, "Security is a core value. Profit, growth, fun, morale, good culture, all that stuff really rolls up into security."

People engage when they feel secure. Your organization can have unique edges by simply treating people well - challenging them, yes. Demanding great work from them, yes.

But nobody wants to work for an idiotic organization with no edge.

That's just too dull.

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.

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