When a once-growing business stumbles, the cause is sometimes an overlooked culprit: the company culture. Many good businesses with solid ideas, a great market and talented people start to lose their grip on growth after failing to win victories that seemed within grasp.
This saps energy from the business as people stop believing they can be successful. “There is no obvious moment when the danger of failure becomes clear,” said leadership expert John Hamm. “But there is a moment when a business enters the risk zone – when challenges arise and there are no clear answers.”
Here are seven ways to keep a culture of winning alive in your business:
• Set reasonable goals. There’s a thin line between an invigorating challenge and a deflating expectation. Business owners – and especially hard-charging entrepreneurs – should realize that not everyone may share their level of maniacal commitment.
• Avoid the trap of “pseudo-wins.” Everyone likes to reward small wins. And that’s great. But it becomes a problem when that’s all there ever is and everyone starts to major in minors. In other words, keep your perspective.
• Banish lame excuses. Every workplace has the equivalent of a “the-dog-ate-my-homework” excuse. Don’t buy it. Some tolerance is required, but there should be clear lines as to what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
• Don’t tolerate sloppiness. The nice guy in all of us wants to avoid the perception of being a hardcore drill sergeant and will politely overlook a cut corner, incomplete report or other shoddy work. But sloppiness often stems from laziness or simply not having enough pride in the finished product.
• Discourage data fudging. Achieving and measuring victories often requires interpreting data of one kind or another. But data can be interpreted to fit whatever you want it to fit. This “editorialized data” is a big danger.
• Measure what matters. The right metrics will help enormously. Look for reality – not what you simply expect. Measuring what matters is critical to successful execution. Once your plan is set and under way, you must rely on feedback (metrics) to make course corrections along the way.
• Make your commitment to winning absolute. “A tolerance for excuses, corrupt data and a distorted view of what is really happening ‘out there’ is akin to boiling a frog one degree at a time,” said Hamm. “The frog can’t tell how hot the water has become until it’s too late.” You must avoid the rationalization that occurs when winning seems out of reach and keep your commitment to making it work. •
Daniel Kehrer can be reached at
editor@bizbest.com.
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