Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The 4 Rules of Hard Core Growth

No stories today. No rah rah today. Just hard core facts about four rules you have to have in place if you want real growth in your organization. The sooner you have these in place the sooner you will be able to control, drive and monitor growth. Remove the excuses, cut to the chase and make things happen.

1. Any business activity that can't be measured objectively is a waste of resources

For example, employee evaluations that are subjective are not effective and are a waste of time both, for the management who creates the fiction on the evaluations and for the employee who knows subjective evaluations are beauty contests. How much time is wasted on information that is purely subjective in your organization? Did your last marketing campaign work? If the audience you were targeting bought the product you were profiling then you got measured results. If your TV ad on local cable to talk nice about your company in general gave you a warm fuzzy but had no measurable impact, was it worth the cost?

If it's important find a way to objectively measure it. If you can't measure it, then forget about it because it's a waste of time to even consider worrying about something you can't or won't measure. You want quality customer service? Measure it. You want cross selling? Measure it. You want fewer mistakes? Measure it!

2. Forget core values and mission statements, the reason you are in business is to make money

Amazingly, executives and boards of directors still give a care about wordsmithing core values and mission statements and will waste hours on it. You want to grow? Make profits. Every measurement in an organization MUST have some contribution to growing profits for your company otherwise its wasted effort and off focus. Speaking of wasting time core values are unnecessary if you fully understand the goal is to make long-term growth and improved profits; therefore, no need for core values such as ethics and putting the customer first. Those are a given if you want sustainable growth in any organization! Cut out the fluff and get to the core -- making money and growing the business.

3. Everyone's compensation should be tied to their ability to generate profitable revenue

If you want performance you need to tie it to something that impacts the employee. Performance-based compensation is the key to getting people interested and involved in making a profitable difference. Every employee needs to understand how they impact the bottom line and their compensation needs to reflect their personal impact.

What if you can't figure out how to measure someone's job impact on the bottom line, like the janitor for example? Every job you employee needs to have a measurable link to the profits and growth you are trying to create, if you can't measure it, do something else with it. In the janitor's case, outsource that job so you don't need a measurement. Remember the first point of this information -- everything has to be measured.

4, Employees who object to being measured objectively are not doing their jobs


Your best performers will crave the opportunity to have measurement-based compensation because they know they can do what is asked of them. Those coasting, poor performers who are sucking you dry for a paycheck and benefits will whine like you put their privates in a vice. And figuratively, you did. Good for you! It's time to get your organization out of the hands of the coasting whiners and let your performers lead your growth.

Oh, and tell HR to get interviews lined up because there is a wealth of laid off talent who are hungry to make a difference, so now is the best time to restaff and clean house of warm bodies and replace them with people who care enough to make a difference.

Sound hard core? Give each fired employee a pack of tissues on the way out the door. Who says I don't have a heart.