Wednesday 4 May 2011

Are you sabotaging your own business?

You spend months defining your strategy, 1000’s of man hours and cash on generating new business, on getting people to want to buy from you.

When a new customer shows up, all that work and expense, is lost when your potential new buyer is greeted by your overworked, un-trained, annoyed employee.

Go into any shop in the country and listen to the banter of the staff on the shop floor. You will find out what’s not working, who is seen as a joke, what the staff think of the management team; the products; the company. And in these same organisations you will hear the management teams berate their ungrateful, don’t know how lucky they are staff and put it all down to human nature.

But, there is plenty you can do about it.

Create purpose in your organisation that everyone can be proud of. (Here’s a tip - purpose is not about making more money – it’s never been a motivator and never will be). Purpose is something worth being part of- think big.

Be true to that purpose – don’t make it a soundbite – live it.

Listen to your staff, and really listen. You do not have all the answers, but the people on the front line, working in the detail, face to face with customers every day, operating your machinery and systems – they have a pretty good idea.

Invest in, and train people so that they have the skills to do the job brilliantly.

Confront problems. Don’t sweep them under the carpet and don’t move them to another team making them someone else’s problem.

2 comments:

  1. Nice post, Tamsin. Investing in and training staff must be the way forward for any compnay that is going to be successful.

    Also, you are completely right about money not being the prime motivator. This is an EXCELLENT presetnation about this here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

    I recommend it to everybody.

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  2. Hi Francis

    Thanks for the link. This is a great presentation. I love the style and have seen a few from RSA.

    Hope you are doing well!

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