Mind the Gap!
That famous warning found in the subways of London finds another use. This time it's not a warning for pedestrians stepping off the platform onto a train, it's a measurement tool for leaders to examine where they place their emphasis. I developed this early in my post-military life as I began to look under the hood of several businesses. I also use it as a template in my "Investing in People" keynote address. Follow me.
The left vertical line represents growth and the bottom horizontal line time. The black line represents organizational growth. This line can shoot up drastically in a young organization experiencing rapid growth, adding people, processes, and gobbling up market share. Or it can rise gradually over time as a more mature organization experiences changes such as mergers, acquisitions, or a change in product, service or senior leadership. Organizations do not stand still. They grow and leaders place almost all of their emphasis on this line. The line represents the systems, processes, sales effort, finance, marketing and other factors which facilitate growth. It gets all the attention.
The green line below represents leadership. More specifically, the leader's ability to connect with his or her people in personal ways. To invest in their personal and professional growth. To coach, teach and mentor them. To know their families and what they enjoy doing outside of the workplace. To know what motivates and demotivates them; what sparks their anger and how to best communicate to them. This line gets less attention as leaders are so enamored by the black line of business growth. A gap is formed.
The gap is filled by the things you see listed in the box. Employee turnover, bad customer reviews, poor employee performance, lack of loyalty, motivation and drive to take the organization to new heights all fill this gap. Danger zone!
The goal is to shrink this gap by balancing your focus as a leader between these two essential aspects of a business. In fact, the green line ought to be above the black line so that as the organization experiences change and growth, leadership is there to catch it. I can show you how!
Never too busy for a referral. Connect me with a deserving leader or share their contact information and I'll take good care of them.
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell