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Interview Patty

150 - 5 Core Areas To Measure Your Company's Ability To Succeed

Anything necessary for your business to achieve goals and succeed must be managed and measured consistently. Without regular analysis of what’s working, what can be improved upon and trends that could present obstacles in the future, you can easily get blind-sided down the road.

1. Team

On a regular basis throughout Navy SEAL training, each member of the class will anonymously submit a list to the instructors of who they think are the top five and bottom five performers. The instructors compare this data to their own analysis and the names consistently landing in the bottom five are cut. Some large organizations cut the bottom 10% every year. This keeps things fresh and more importantly combats complacency.

The team has to share the values and truly believe in the mission. If there are team members that don’t connect with that shared sense of purpose, they most likely need to be let off the bus at the next stop. Always make sure you have the right team to get the job done. That means having A-players and B-players that have the potential to become A-players.  Anyone else will hold you back and cause resentment among your top talent.

2. Talent

Now that we have established the importance of having the right people, we also need to touch on how critical it is that each team member has the talent necessary to do their job. Having people that share the vision and values is great but without the skills necessary to drive the company forward, problems will quickly arise.

Not all companies have vast training and development resources. Much of the time talent needs to be recruited from the outside as opposed to grown within. Other times the company outgrows team members that used to be perceived as top performers. It’s not uncommon as companies grow they must shed old systems, processes and sometimes people in order to become more mature and scalable.

But great talent costs money to attract and retain; and that plays a big role in these decisions. Do you invest in developing talent from within or invest possibly more in recruiting the top people in your industry? Both approaches pose potential challenges. Always be thinking about who you have on the team, who should not be on the team and who you still need to add to the team.

3. Tools

The right team with stellar talent still needs the tools and resources to be successful. You wouldn’t send a SEAL platoon to assault a terrorist stronghold with BB guns and expect amazing results. OK, who am I kidding right? They would still achieve great results!

I have experienced this in my own companies. Having a great team only takes the business so far. They must also have tools that aid in the efficient execution of their duties. Not to mention that when any team is clearly not set up for success nor given what they need to perform at peak levels, morale will take a huge hit. Whether its software, the right machinery, the right vendors or proper budgets, make sure the team is set up for success. If so, they will give you everything they’ve got.

4. Training

In the SEAL Teams you get the best tools and then you train, train and train some more. As the SEAL Creed says, “…My training is never complete.” As I mentioned above however, not all organizations have endless time and resources for training and professional development.

In surveying team members in our companies we have found that outside of a great working environment and fair compensation, people want to be trained. They seek mentorship. They want to increase their skills in a given area and be in a constant state of learning and collaboration. This expands their ability to perform in their roles, provides a tangible framework for their career path and helps build the high-performance team necessary to compete and win.

If you don’t think you have the monetary resources to offer training and career pathing for the team, I recommend working with your CFO or finance team to find the budget. It will pay dividends in the long run and you will attract and retain great talent. All of this has a positive impact on the bottom line.

5. Time

None of this matters if the team doesn’t have the time to adequately execute their duties, follow up on important initiatives or develop their skills. Time is something that none of us have enough of. It is the team’s most precious commodity. Time management and prioritization are the key to having a truly productive team. If there are too many top priorities there are really no priorities at all. The leaders must communicate the priorities and provide the team the right amount of time to get the job done. Rushing through tasks leads to mistakes and the loss of more time and money.

Read the full article here: Forbes

All the best!

Patty Block

Building Blocks

7941 Katy Fwy. #414
Houston, TX 77024 USA

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