Every company faces their own battles. The good news, each battle can be won.
I've been fortunate enough to help dozens and dozens of companies through growing pains and wanted to share the most common mistakes that I see them facing so you can recognize these early on, and hopefully, not have these slow you down. The 6 Mistakes Holding Most Companies Back 1. Lack of Communication: Effective communication is the lifeblood of any organization. When communication breaks down, misunderstandings occur, leading to wasted time, effort, resources, and frustrations throughout company. 2. Unclear Focus: Without a clear (and well communicated) strategic plan, your team may be working towards different goals, leading to confusion and inefficiency. 3. Accountability Gaps: Driving employees accountable for their responsibilities is crucial for achieving results and this cannot happen when they don't: understand what needs to get done, want the job, and have time to complete all of the expected roles. 4. Leadership Challenges: Conscious leadership sets the tone for the entire organization and when it is not present, you've already hit the ceiling. Nobody will rise above the level of the owner and if they're not pushing themselves, they've capped the rest of their company. 5. Inefficient Systems and Processes: The lack of consistency in how your company executes on your core processes is creating a different, and not always effective, experience for your customers and team members. This, on top of outdated software systems that are too often in place, can greatly be hindering your productivity and growth. 6. Lack of Structure: Complexity and confusion are inevitable without clearly communicated structure. Not having a strong structure of accountability makes it impossible to become a great company. What got you here, wont get you there. What You Can Do It all comes down to clarity. Creating clarity in all 6 of these components will lead to better execution towards a shared vision. Communication - Encourage open, transparent communication among your team members, and establish clear channels for sharing information. Rollout a cadence of communication, whether that be daily touchpoints among departments, weekly team meetings, monthly department sync-ups, quarterly and annual company updates or some combination of these. Remember, it takes people 7 times and 7 ways before they understand.
Focus - Define your company's vision, mission, strategies, and goals. This helps ensure that everyone understands and is rowing in the same direction. After you've defined, be sure to review them each quarter to get refocused and put together your focus for the upcoming quarter (this needs to happen every 3 months).
Accountability - Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and performance metrics. Check-in with your direct reports weekly to make sure they have what they need to succeed and they've completed what they've committed to. Regularly review progress and provide feedback to foster a culture of accountability.
Leadership - Invest in your leaderships development. Growing strong leaders will level-up your company faster than anything else. Give them the tools and skills they need to develop more leaders by working on growing emotional intelligence, communication skills, building trust and more.
Systems & Processes - Creating consistency will create better results. You can do this by identifying your core processes, documenting them, improving them along the way, training your team on them and driving accountability by measuring that they're being followed by all. Technology is evolving at an unbelievable pace and to get the most from it you need to stay on-top so if there is a kink, be sure to check it out.
Structure - Ensure that functions, roles and accountabilities are clearly defined to avoid complexity and confusion. Do this by looking a year from now and building out the right structure for your company at that time, vs. what you have in-place today. This helps you identify gaps in seats and people that you have for you to then prioritize the biggest need.
Want Help? Are you recognizing any of these struggles in your own business journey? Don't let these challenges hold you back any longer. Take the first step towards overcoming them by scheduling a call with me. Let's discuss your unique situation and chart a path to your company's success. Click here to schedule your appointment now.