How you get from your current state to your desired state of success rarely happens accidentally. Plan your finance business strategy until all elements are exhausted.
Develop.
Focusing on the development of your current resources takes time and effort. On the people side you likely have some incredible talent that needs help unleashing their immense potential. Having folks engaged and motivated to deliver on the company’s strategy takes time and planning. Ensuring (not assuming) the team is perfectly aligned with company goals is the responsibility of management and a core focus area that is sometimes missed. Development comes in many forms and should be integral to your strategy. Have you ever heard of a successful sports franchise that relies on talent alone? One that is without an intensified development program that allows players to reach their full potential. The Leafs in the 80s prove that it’s not a recipe for success.
Operational development and the many facets of this strategy will vary from business to business. It’s difficult to generalize how to integrate people and operational development into your strategy but critical to ensure you’ve covered both. Always focus on the future vision of your company when articulating your strategy.
Transform.
Change is difficult. It requires disruption, distraction from routine, and often difficult decisions to be made. Without transformation though you’re getting passed by your competitors that put company evolution as their key priority. Putting your transformation strategy in place takes careful planning. Make sure this plan covers people, products, partners, marketing, customer demands, culture, operations, sales and management. As in any change management situation make sure you ask the question, what happens if the status quo is kept? How do we improve our culture to ensure we have productive and highly engaged employees? Transformation occurs when you achieve significant improvements in your business, strategizing on how to get there in the form of design-implement-operate will elevate company performance.
Transformation requires resource planning as your investment strategy needs to align to the future state of the company. Resources are limited therefore you’ll need a strategy that incorporates realignment of your current resources as well as creation of new investments. Transformation plans will need to incorporate people, process, technology, and products to be successful.
Inspire.
Deep leadership occurs when it’s really easy for employees to care about the business in a genuine way. Management does not allow for behaviour that is often referred to as toxic. Toxic behaviour is dealt with swiftly and employees are motivated to perform to their potential because it’s a joy to come to work every day. This doesn’t always happen through HR policies and positive social media messaging. Ensuring that your growth strategy has a well thought out people strategy is critical. Most companies have high level HR policies that are very positive but many of these still have trouble dealing with conflicts when they arise. Improving the collective EQ of an organization is Inspired leadership. Giving people the tools and support they need to work in ideal conditions will lead to improvements in productivity. Think of a time where conflict led to distractions. Remember how many hours of productivity were lost? Get ahead of this by ensuring you proactively manage a positive culture. Inspire your people, give them the gift of an improved experience at work and a better life because of it.