(In our last article, we discussed that a business leader’s road to accelerated, sustained, growth is riddled with obstacles. It was the first in a series of articles we will be publishing to help business leaders identify the elements required for accelerated growth and the common hurdles that impede its attainment. Last time we identified the most common growth obstacles. In this installment, we will talk about what can be done to overcome those barriers, starting with the growth obstacle of underperforming employees.)
When results lag, there's always a reason. Poor outcomes are not random.
When it comes to missing financial targets such as sales, revenue, and profits, company leaders typically have a variety of metrics they examine. Most of them are divided into various sub-performance categories attributable to different organizational departments such as marketing, sales, or customer success. Almost always, this is an examination of things that can be seen in the rear-view mirror, so to speak. It’s a historical examination.
But what if your company could anticipate whether it’s going to hit its targets? What if it started solving the problem before the problem materialized? And what data would you need to make that kind of prediction?
The best predictor of whether you will hit your financial goals is the behavior and performance of your people. They are (or at least should be) your first data point. Here are the kinds of data your people’s actions reveal that suggest you're going to fall short:
Add these up and you get inadequate employee performance. And underperformance leads to missed targets.
For most leaders, this is a problem they feel ill-equipped to solve. It’s overwhelming. It’s a recruiting problem. It’s an accountability problem. It’s an engagement problem. It’s a performance standards and management problem. It’s a leadership problem. And more.
The key to making this issue less overwhelming is getting ahead of it. Company leaders need to anticipate their employees’ mindset and influence it before it takes root. One of the ways to do this is by focusing on the organizational line of sight.
Line of sight occurs in a company when employees have a common understanding of the cascading connection between the following elements:
Purpose, Vision, Mission. Your people must have clarity about where the business is headed and why its mission matters. Just as important, they need to understand where they fit in the company’s future, and the purpose the business serves needs to align with your employees’ individual values, principles, and priorities.
Business Model & Strategy. After understanding where the company is headed, your employees must understand how its vision will be achieved. To contribute to growth, people need an understanding of how the company consistently produces revenue and profits and its strategy for competing with its business model in the marketplace.
Roles and Expectations. Before employees commit to being growth contributors, they want to first understand their role in the business model and strategy and what’s expected of them in that role. They want to know the outcomes for which they are responsible. Too many employees don’t know how success is defined for the roles they’re expected to perform.
Financial Rewards. Finally, if you want your people to be as committed as you to business profitability and growth, they will want to know how they are rewarded financially for fulfilling the expectations associated with their roles. Your pay offering should clearly define the financial nature of the growth partnership you want to have with your people. Growth partners perform differently than people who see themselves as simply doing a job. They assume stewardship over their roles and take responsibility for results.
So how do you achieve line of sight in your company? You start by determining the level of line of sight that currently exists. There are certainly formal ways to examine this dynamic, but it doesn’t need to be complicated. You can begin assessing line of sight tomorrow by talking with 10 people from different parts of your organization and asking each of them this series of questions:
If you receive consistent answers to those questions, and the responses are what you would want them to be, it’s likely line of sight in your organization is pretty solid.
However, if your people struggle to answer those queries, and the responses vary from person to person, then you have work to do. You will also know that you’re going to struggle to meet your financial targets until you have a greater line of sight.
Looking at line of sight gives you a built-in framework for improving performance. You begin by working on root issues, starting with gaining greater clarity about your company’s purpose, mission, and vision. Do the hard work of defining why your business exists and what it expects to achieve. Then start communicating those insights to your people in a compelling way, both collectively and individually. From there, move on to each of the other elements of line of sight that need additional focus.