10 Ways to Get Employees Focused On the Bottom Line
“Your employees want to contribute to the bottom line, but no one in the higher levels of management is telling them what, specifically, they need to do to achieve that,” say David Giannetto and Anthony Zecca, co-authors of “The Performance Power Grid: The Proven Method to Create and Sustain Superior Organizational Performance” (Wiley, 2006). “They can’t meet organizational goals because they’re too busy fighting fires that arise during the workday. Their focus changes daily. Employees need a clear, practical way to understand exactly what they should be doing … every hour of every day.”
What companies really need, according to Giannetto and Zecca, is a methodology that creates long-term, sustainable, superior organizational performance by closing the gap between strategy and execution, properly focusing employee action, and giving them the information they need to make better, timelier decisions. The Performance Power Grid transforms individual employee actions into a unified effort in which everything everyone does is focused on driving the performance of the entire organization.
Here are ten ways the Performance Power Grid can help you get your employees focused on those areas that truly matter — areas that will improve your financials in 2007:
Streamline your processes. Obviously, something is going on at your organization that’s preventing you from reaching the success you and your employees are striving for. It’s likely that the core of your problems rest in your processes themselves. Are your employees hindered by unnecessary paperwork? Do they have to go to upper-management to ask permission to do things they could easily handle themselves? These are all problems in your processes themselves, and all they do is waste employees’ time and the company’s money. “The Power Grid forces you to take a look at these pointless and time-consuming processes,” says Giannetto. “It will help you determine your power drivers, those things that truly drive the success of your company. When you know what they are, you can easily eliminate the unnecessary steps that have gradually built up in your processes. Your employees will appreciate the extra time they have available to focus on more important tasks.”
Implement dashboards that look across departments. A major roadblock to any company’s success is its employees’ tendency to get stuck in their own silos, or comfort zones. Their unwillingness to leave those silos prevents them from doing everything in their power to drive the company forward. One way to draw your employees out of their silos is to create dashboards that show the relationships between departments. These dashboards allow all employees to see what’s going on in other departments and enables people to get to know the impact they are having on their coworkers that, otherwise, they’d never see. “Inter-departmental dashboards are a great way to use the Grid to naturally draw people out of their silos and cubicles,” says Zecca. “You can stand back and watch as your employees realize they personally can be more successful with the assistance of those around them. Each person begins to focus on the same problem from his or her own perspective, but also works toward a common goal that’s in the best interest of the organization.”
Focus on quick wins. When you introduce the Grid at your organization, it’s likely that you will hear a lot of grumblings and complaints from your employees. Let’s face it: They won’t be thrilled about having to get familiar with yet another business model. And until they see the Grid actually working for them, their attitudes aren’t likely to improve. That’s why you must focus on quick wins. “A quick win doesn’t mean a huge cost to the organization and is actually a way of lowering your risk,” says Giannetto. “But, it is something that will mean a lot to your employees. It shows them that this isn’t just one more new business initiative that will further complicate their jobs and require more change. Giving them easy access to the information they need each day shows them that management really can fix problems and that you really do care.”
Make sure your decision makers get the information they need on a daily basis. Managers need something that provides feedback on where the organization is now and where it is going in the future. Managers at each level need a real-time view of what’s happening. To get them focused on what they should be doing, metrics are required. “Properly constructed, they reveal where the organization is heading and give managers the opportunity to prevent failure or seize an opportunity before it’s too late,” says Giannetto. “Properly used, they have the ability to directly affect how your managers manage. For the first time, your managers will be receiving the numbers they actually need in order to drive performance.”
Outline each employee’s individual responsibilities and then measure his or her progress. You may assume your employees know exactly what their jobs require them to focus on, but in their day-to-day work lives that focus may get a little fuzzy. Hold one-on-one meetings with each one. Ask what a normal day looks like for them. Are they getting caught up in tasks that aren’t driving results? Help them re-assess where their main focus should go, and figure out a way to measure their progress.
Let your employees evaluate you to see if what you’re doing is really helping them. When your company’s numbers aren’t great, your first thought is to point the finger at employees. What if you, also, are a source of the problem? Perhaps there are things you’re doing that you think are helping employees when in reality they aren’t. Employee evaluations can be a real eye-opener. Create an evaluation form that employees can fill out anonymously. “We see it all the time in organizations,” says Giannetto. “CEOs who think they are king, who are unwilling to take a look at what they are doing that is hurting their company more than helping. … If CEOs are still bogging employees down with ineffective meetings and numbers that don’t mean anything to them, problems will continue. There’s no better way to find out what you are doing wrong than by asking those your actions affect the most—your employees.”
Encourage them to sell more to existing customers. Here’s a simple way to increase revenue: Companies often create complicated objectives in order to create new customers, while neglecting those customers that are often the easiest sell—the ones who are already buying your product or service. Your company is bringing a value to these customers or they wouldn’t keep coming back. Are there new products/services that would benefit them that you have been directing only toward new customers? “Taking time to examine your customer base will help you determine how best to bring value to your existing customers,” says Zecca. “When you know what your current customers value, you will know how to sell to new customers who value the same things.”
Emphasize the importance of daily tasks and how they will shape the organization’s success as a whole. In your one-on-one meetings with your employees, you’ll start to see that it can be difficult for them to do their jobs because of issues and “fires” that crop up during the day. You’ll see that most of their daily effort is expended on activities that add little or no value to the achievement of your organization’s efforts. Employees may be busy as bees, but, unfortunately, their actions often fail to provide any lasting benefit. They should be focused on the key actions that they can affect, performing the key tasks that drive them toward the company’s objectives. “Pyramids were built using only pulleys, ropes, and a strong, unified purpose,” says Giannetto. “It’s a lesson we’ve learned with manual labor, yet one that largely escapes us in modern corporations. By utilizing the Power Grid and its unifying power drivers, management can tell employees, ‘This is what is important. This is what you are responsible for.’ It adds clarity to daily activities.”
Give employees what they need to excel at their jobs. Maybe you’ve been withholding on making improvements in the company to save money during these tough times. But what if you’re withholding those things your employees need to be more successful? Are your employees working on outdated (slow) computers that are constantly crashing and slowing down their work pace? Are they using old versions of computer programs that were improved months or even years ago? If you aren’t giving them the equipment they need to be successful, then your efforts to save money actually are costing your company money.
Keep them on their toes. When companies are meeting and exceeding their goals, employees have a tendency to celebrate and relax. Instead, they should be asking, “Is there something taking place we can take advantage of to drive sales even higher?” Or, “Is there something that we have to do to make sure we meet this increased demand and still provide superior service?” “It can never hurt to give them a little extra motivation,”says Giannetto. “Implement a little friendly competition by rewarding your top sellers. This will give your employees a little extra motivation when you are doing well. When your company is powered by the Grid, your employees are constantly prodded to drive the company to greater success.”
“By simply following these 10 steps,” says Zecca. “ … instead of repeating the same actions, managers now adjust their performance to fit what is actually happening. Instead of dwelling on the past, they see the future. They can now do something about bad trends. Personalities, office politics and the ability to smooth talk or evade responsibility are all diminished. The truly effective managers emerge.”
“We’ve seen the transformation in other companies,” adds Giannetto. “We witness it every day in our own. We’ve created the Performance Power Grid and then tested it in diverse environments, refining it along the way. We’ve seen that the methodology applies everywhere, regardless of industry, the current status of the company, or the challenges a company is facing.”
David Giannetto is director of Cohn Consulting Group’s Enterprise Performance Management Practice. Anthony Zecca is partner-in-charge of Cohn Consulting Group, a division of J.H. Cohn LLP, an accounting and consulting firm. They are co-authors of “The Performance Power Grid: The Proven Method to Create and Sustain Superior Organizational Performance” (Wiley, 2006, $27.95). For more information, visit performancepowergrid.com.
- People:
- Anthony Zecca
- David Giannetto