Think for a moment how much time is wasted each day at work because things weren’t clear from the beginning. Fixing this should be one of your biggest priorities.
What is the most important function in a company?
The answer probably depends on who is answering the question.
Sales will talk about revenue being the most important thing. Marketing will suggest it’s all about customers. Finance will talk about profit. HR will talk about people. Operations will talk about suppliers and the importance of delivery.
So who is right?
The problem, of course, is that everyone is right.
All of these things are important and the failure of any part of the puzzle will present challenges for other parts of the business. Unfortunately, this can create tensions, bickering, and competition for resources. From the outside, the irony is clear for most to see – everyone is actually part of the same team. In other words, every job exists simply because it is needed to help the company complete what it set out to achieve.
Without doubt, this is the most important role for the Leadership Team – cultivating a sense of being on the same team with common objectives. Rather than working in silo’s, everyone is playing a role in the final outcome, which is often the pursuit of happy customers. Every single decision needs to be made with this in mind.
For example, I recently heard about a certain social-media giant who has implemented self-managing teams. However, they didn’t quite get their inter-team communication drumbeat right, which still led to unhappy customers. They focused on hiring self-accountable people, however, they still weren’t firing on all cylinders. The mission they were all on wasn’t clear. Once they fixed this, everything started to click into place.
When everyone comes together for the same reason, ego’s are moved aside.
There is nothing wrong with a person wanting to move ahead in their career. However, the minute that someone starts to perform their responsibilities with their own agenda as the moral compass, things start going wrong.
Everything is better when ego’s are in check, and everyone is working towards the same things.
Questions like ‘What is best for the customer?’ are better than ‘What is best for me?’. The right decisions and courses of action become clear. It also helps everyone align towards the same things.
If you would like to learn more about how to turbo-boost your internal alignment, get in touch. It could be one of the most valuable things you can do right now.
To know more click here to request a free demo of My Employee Life today.
- Date - February 26, 2019