Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

by Gino Wickman

That you could have great employees at all levels who share your vision, communicate with each other, solve their own problems, and demonstrate accountability?

None have worked for long, and as a result, your staff has become numb to new initiatives. You’re spinning your wheels, and you need traction to move again.

You need strong guiding principles that will work for your company day in and day out.

but also know how to communicate those visions to the people around them.

A Scorecard is a weekly report containing five to 15 high-level numbers for the organization.

You won’t have to suffer from the uneasy feeling of not quite knowing what’s going on in your business, nor will you have to waste time asking a half dozen people for the real story.

Everyone will have a clear, meaningful, and manageable number that he or she is accountable for on a regular basis.

Most entrepreneurs don’t understand how powerful process can be, but when you apply it correctly, it works like magic, resulting in simplicity, scalability, efficiency, and profitability.

Have you documented the way you want everything done in your organization? Do your people know what processes they are following and why? Are they all executing the required procedures uniformly?

First, everyone in the organization should have Rocks, which are clear 90-day priorities designed to keep them focused on what is most important.

The second discipline requires implementing what is called a Meeting Pulse at all levels in the organization, which will keep everyone focused, aligned, and in communication.

Each of your departmental heads should be better than you in his or her respective position. Of course, you will need to give them clear expectations

It’s not practical for you to remain chef, head waiter, and dishwasher as your company grows.

The beauty of this transition is that there are people who have the skills and enthusiasm to do these jobs.

But even talented leaders can’t be effective without first settling on a single operating system for their company.

“If you cannot risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot become your best. If you cannot become your best, you cannot be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else matters?”

willing to be vulnerable or open-minded.

The leader who feels he has to have all of the answers and can never be wrong is completely missing the point.

Their problem is that they make the mistake of thinking that everyone else in the organization sees it too.

Clarify your vision and you will make better decisions about people, processes, finances, strategies, and customers.

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

The first step is letting go because the vision you’re about to clarify can’t be about you. It has to define something bigger. You need to create a vision that points the way to a greater good.

What is vision? It’s clearly defining who and what your organization is, where it’s going and how it’s going to get there.

Once they’re defined, you must hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values. This is how to build a thriving culture around them.

When your people don’t embrace your core values, their actions hurt your cause more than help it.

One of their key findings was that in every case, these companies defined their core values in the very early stages and built a culture of people around them.

Have each member list three people who, if you could clone them, would lead you to market domination.

You will no longer be managing assumptions, subjective opinions, emotions, and egos.

Once you have tracked those numbers for a while, you will achieve the valuable ability to see patterns and trends to predict the future.

With a Scorecard, however, you can change the future.

This is the person who must deliver that weekly number to the organization, not the person who simply enters the number.

You will soon see 13 weeks (three months) at a glance, which enables you to see patterns and trends.

The numbers in the Scorecard should be weekly activity-based numbers, not the type of high-level numbers you see in a profit and loss statement (P&L).

numbers showing activity and telling you whether you’re on track for a strong P&L.

Red-flagging occurs when one of your numbers does not hit or exceed the goal for the week.

Your leadership team will become more proactive at solving problems because you’ll have hard data that not only points out current problems but also predicts future ones.

you must know the source of the number in the Scorecard; therefore you can go directly to the root cause and create better accountability and clarity with your people.

Right people in the right seats love clarity.

The better you are at solving problems, the more successful you become.

What is draining your energy is not having a lot of work to do; rather, it’s having unresolved issues. You’re about to learn a process that helps leadership teams quickly dig to the root of an issue, discuss solutions, and then decide—therefore keeping them moving forward and giving them energy by pulling up the anchors holding them back.

“communication happens naturally when you make the work environment safe.”

The way to get meaningful issues on the list is to create open and honest teams.

he made it mandatory that everyone bring two issues. If someone did not have two, he or she could not attend the meeting. He said it was the best meeting his team had ever had. With the floodgates opened, they are healthier than ever.

Most teams suffer from different challenges when solving issues. The common ones include fear of conflict, lack of focus, lack of discipline, lack of commitment, and personal ego.

Clearly identify the real issue, because the stated problem is rarely the real one.

the stated problem is a symptom of the real issue, so you must find the root of the matter.

You have to become more vulnerable with each other and be willing to be straight about real problems. Remember the greater good.

there are three types of issues. One is a true problem that has to be solved. The second is information that needs to be communicated and agreed to by the team. The third is an idea or opportunity that needs feedback, brainstorming, insight, and/or a green light from the team.

Everyone should say what they believe but they should say it only once, because more than once is politicking.

try not to push the solution in a direction that’s more favorable to you or your team.