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February 7 - March 30, 2024
companies in which he’s invested an edge in the marketplace. Mark Zuckerberg’s
nothing interesting can come out of your brain that you don’t put in first.
The best leaders have the right questions, but turn to their employees, customers, advisors, and the crowd to mine the answers. Every business is more valuable to the degree that it does not depend on its top leader.
Reduce by 80% the time it takes the top team to manage the business (operational activities) Refocus the senior team on market-facing activities Realign everyone else (onto the same page) to drive execution and results
Leadership: the inability to staff/grow enough leaders throughout the organization who have the capabilities to delegate and predict Scalable infrastructure: the lack of systems and structures (physical and organizational) to handle the complexities in communication and decisions that come with growth Marketing: the failure to scaleup an effective marketing function capable of attracting new customers, talent, advisors, and other key relationships to the business
In managing Cash, don’t run out of it! This means paying as much attention to how every decision affects cash flow as you would to revenue and profitability.
mind,
while respecting the rules that keep you from being swept off the mountain (Values)
“most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
“Routine sets you free” is a key driving principle behind our methodologies and tools. You may set a goal to lose weight, but unless you change some daily and weekly routines, it will never be accomplished.
Goals without routines are wishes; routines without goals are aimless. The most successful business leaders have a clear vision and the disciplines (routines) to make it a reality.
“Simple, not simpler” is our aim, as Einstein warned.
Our concern is they might be working on the wrong question. Much of our work is helping leadership teams formulate the right questions.
needs to have a level of trust that permits true debate and constructive conflict to occur.
To do this, they need to know and understand the company’s 10- to 25-year goal (BHAG®); who the core customers are; the three Brand Promises everyone needs to keep; and what the company does — and be able to explain it when asked (the elevator pitch).
three to 10 times more cash assets than average for their industries,
The Power of One: The 7 main financial levers available to managers to improve cash and returns in the business are:
Accounts receivable: You can collect from your debtors faster.
Inventory/WIP (work in progress): You can reduce the amount of stock you have on hand.
Accounts payable: You can slow down the payment of creditors.
Great execution won’t get you anywhere if your strategy is wrong.
leadership, infrastructure, and marketing that can prevent firms from dealing with complexity are obstacles that Rudy, Harrington, and Tannas negotiated when growing their companies.
Senior leaders become further isolated from customers and frontline employees, losing their gut feel for the business and the marketplace.
To get to 10 employees, founders must delegate activities in which they are weak. To get to 50 employees, they have to delegate functions in which they are strong!
Dell, and the owners of Venture and Inc. magazines on his list of 25. What’s crazy, in just 36 months of working the list, one hour per week, the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs
So how do you know you need to make changes on the people side of the
At the same time, there may be some people in your personal or professional life who are destructive — literally draining the life out of you — and/or distract you from your higher goals. There’s a space on the form where you can note relationships you want to end gracefully.
Again, this doesn’t mean that any of these people is the boss; it means they are to monitor the situation, ensure that customer-satisfaction feedback is gathered and reported to the leadership team at the weekly meeting, and alert the team if there are issues.
“One of the things that a company can control in any market is operational excellence by removing waste in a system,”
our costs into two columns: things that add value to our clients and things that don’t.
Lean is not about reducing headcount. It’s about reducing waste.
devoting them to serving customers, making sales, and growing the business.
In this case, remind everyone that assigning someone accountability for a process doesn’t mean that he is the new boss of everyone who touches the process, nor does he necessarily have increased decision-making authority. His job is to monitor the process (time, cost, quality), let the team know if there are any issues, and lead a regular meeting to fix or improve that particular process.
The person to whom all these process leaders report is usually the head of operations (a COO type).
Operations people are generally systems-focused. You want a head of operations who is obsessed with process mapping and improvement — or better yet, experienced in implementing Lean.
One of the most important KPIs for processes is time — in either number of days (to deliver) or number of hours (to produce).
better, faster, and cheaper,
ACTION: List one to three KPIs for each process to measure its speed, quality, and cost.
every function that touches a specific process,
customers who are affected by the process
eliminating wasteful steps and removing obstacles.
You’ll be surprised at the number of steps and people required for a simple process.
The beauty of identifying and documenting the processes in your business is that it provides you with an excellent how-to manual for new employees or existing ones who are off track.
Checklists are valuable for key parts of your four to nine processes and help ensure that the right things happen.
They catch mental flaws inherent in all of us — flaws of memory and attention and thoroughness.
One reason is that it is known for delivering fantastic customer service.
the strength of your People comes from the right leadership doing the right things right
An A Player, by the Smarts’ definition, is someone in the top 10% of the available talent pool who is willing to accept your specific offer.
a Job Scorecard describes the outcomes you want from such activities ($8 million in revenue, seven new S&P 500 clients, a 100% contract renewal rate among the customers the trash collector serves).
job description (hope you’ve not wasted time creating these) and the Topgrading Job Scorecard.
