Organizational Speed and Success

Regardless of your level or position you are responsible for making your organization successful. You do that by one of two ways, ideally both. You either:

• Increase the speed of your organization OR
• Improve the logic (how the group does what it does)

If you don't do one of those things you won't last long. Regardless of your functional responsibilities or your particular skill set (Data, HR, Finance, Sales, Service, etc.) having this mentality can dramatically improve the efficacy of your company and your long term career success. A culture of people that consistently operate this way will enable you to beat the competition over and over again and become a best in class company not just one of the pack. Below I provide some very basic, almost obvious tactics, to help you win at both of these career game changers.

1. Don't wait until tomorrow. If you can do it today, do it! A company is really just a huge supply chain of work. If something is waiting on you, the whole process or part of the process is waiting on you. Don't let that happen often.
2. Do everything you can do to advance the ball down the field while remaining in sync with the play. Though an allusion to football so many folks think that once the play doesn't involve them they can watch it unfold. That's bunk. You can always do something to tilt the odds in your favor or your teams favor. An example might include a client account your trying to win and you aren't traveling for the final presentation. Have you thought of all the things you could do to help those on the road win the account?
3. Know why you are in every meeting and what your role is. Don't show up and think you're a gift to the room with your presence. If you want folks to take you seriously, take yourself seriously. When you go into meetings have an agenda. If you don't know why you are in a meeting do your homework and make sure it doesn't happen again. Have something to say and a well researched point of view.
4. If something is going to cause your consumer pain and you know it - address it in advance. Your customer isn't a guinea pig. They're a partner. If you expect something to be bad experience call that shot in advance. If a customer is trying something new for the organization clarify what is experimental and what is under built.
5. Don't bullshit. The world is full of so many people who won't give you a straight answer. Smart people know if you aren't giving it and you're just wasting yours and your organization's time with a complex charade that nobody wants you to win, even yourself.
6. Ask yourself and your team how you can improve the speed of your workflows and constantly question if you have obtained simplicity in a process.
7. Think about your successor. Great managers not only deliver on their job well, they leave their job in a great place for the person who is taking over for them. A well built and designed function looks beyond it's creator and plans for the beyond. If you think your organization value comes from the cell phones numbers you personally possess and the secrets and facts you harbor you're the problem not the talent.
8. Contribute to your colleagues and your industry. Business is a team sport. If you don't help others get their jobs done or make it as easy for them to do so as possible you can't make the hall of fame. If you are truly out to change an industry start thinking about how you can contribute to it.
9. Visualize the completion of the goal. There are different types of thinkers. Folks who see the next step so when you ask them how is something going they happily report they've moved onto the next phase and folks who see sequence of processes that will combine to achieve an outcome. Great managers will know how to conceive, design, build, and deliver a process that can be repeated and scaled to achieve an ongoing set of outcomes.

I'm always open to getting things wrong or right so if you have strong reactions to what you've read drop a note or shoot me an email. [email protected]