In this blog series, Fitness Training for Businesses, I emphasize the need to focus on your whole business model to ensure long-term success. Read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
In this post, I want to explore the fourth concern:
How do you balance qualitative and quantitative actions and understand how they support each other mutually?
The financial statements, as a matter of fact all measurable results, are always only end results. Sales don’t happen because of just one action. Customers don’t show up at your door with money to deposit into your bank account in exchange for a product or service. Something had to have happened before that event.
Encourage the team that produces visible results to recognize who got them there in the first place. Integrate every person in your company into a series of internal customer-supplier relationships. Do your team members know who they serve and why they serve them? Do they know how to meet their customers’ needs?
Pretend that every team member must sell their services to other team members:
- Would their internal customers (each other) be happy with their work?
- Would their internal customers be satisfied with their work quality? And the value they provide?
- How about the attitude with which they do it? Will they come back for more because they want to or because they have to?
- How well do your team members understand the needs of their internal customers?
- Does every team member know that they are always providing customer service?
To start balancing qualitative and quantitative actions in your company, you and your team members need a deep and future-focused understanding of the overall purpose of your company. After that, lead vertical and horizontal discussions until every individual understands the ‘why’ of their role.
If you are a leader, a Board member, or a CEO, it starts with you. Yes, there will be apprehension. Yes, you may ruffle some feathers. But imagine how these questions will empower every individual to excel personally. And in turn, how this will benefit your company.
In Part VI we will look at the fifth concern about measuring your business performance: ensuring that every person in your company is connected to its overall purpose. And that their work is recognized, even if it doesn’t show up in a KPI graph.
