Thursday, January 5, 2017

3 Powerful Tips That Will Absolutely Grow Your Business This Year

It's a new year and it's time again to to re-think and/or re-visit areas of our lives both personally and professionally...and for business leaders to assess what they'd ideally like their company outcomes to be in 2017.

It's the same for me entering 2017 coming off a very satisfying 2016. We at The Human Sphere have served up a very positive financial impact for our clients, even as a small, boutique firm. On the conservative side, we've help our clients mitigate losses and realize gains (on the vey low side) of $3.5-5,000,000+.

How we achieved that is embedded in the advice I'd like to share. If you want to grow your business, increase profits, and dare I say reduce your stress as a business owner/leader, consider my advice. 

Now, before I share it, let's consider for a moment what advice is...at least in theory what it's suppose to be.  The definition of advice according to my handy friend Webster is as follows: 

"guidance or recommendations concerning prudent future action, typically given by someone regarded as knowledgeable or authoritative."

This is an important point, advice comes from knowledge and that knowledge is hopefully from experience -- I've found that's the most valuable kind. 

However, sometimes advice is treated like or downgraded to the same level as information. Here is a key distinction, advice is information, but information is not necessarily advice. There's a breath of information business leaders can find in the search to address company challenges.  Some information however, would not be good advice.

The advice to follow is not theory read in a book or something heard from someone else, but extracted from real time experiences with my clients over the past few years. My clients achieved financial gain this past year because they embraced the advice. I invite you to do the same.

If you want to grow your business this next year and into the future, I recommend the 3 power tips below. I know there could be more than 3 that could appear on this list, however, I'm sharing what I know and have experienced will get results - quickly and sustainably.

1).  Create leaders and managers at every level that are and expected to be meaningful business partners 

We've done this in 2 key ways. We've help clients implement a leadership culture and structure that is results based -- the key to which is identifying results that matter to desired business outcomes. This type of leadership structure (many companies don't have one, by the way) have built in, ongoing, real-time accountability to all stakeholders.

I know this sounds crazy, but there are leaders who are very busy - every day - not achieving what's needed...and...they even get promoted! Busy does not automatically translate into meaningful action. Busy leaders don't necessarily contribute to the profitability of a company. They may maintain, but may not contribute to growth. Maintenance is not growth.

Secondly, our clients' leaders and managers know and are able to quantitate their leadership impact financially, even those (and especially those) who don't have direct P/L responsibility. They have learned and can see if they are costing money, maintaining or adding value by how they lead, how they achieve results in executing strategy, working with business processes and working with their teams.

We help our clients examine their beliefs and philosoply about leadership and come to understand that it is not some stand alone, glorified role as many leadership industry gurus treat it. It is an integrated function of business growth and operations to get results. With that in mind, a leadership culture and structure needs to be created for company growth and to foster leadership talent. This is crucial for promotion and succession planning and the approach creates a framework for continued profitability and company valuation.

2). Implement human-centric leadership and company culture
If your employees do not feel respected, appreciated and valued, you're already loosing money. Why? Your "human resource" (and we work with this concept in its most literal sense in human-centric leadership) is probably holding back from giving their best. They are not applying their resources of mind, attention, focus, motivation, creative thinking, technical development, willing collaboration for example, to their job responsibilities that serve your business outcomes.

Many company leaders still have not gotten the message, still don't believe that the human side of their enterprise is the critical element to their company's success and if that element is not given appropriate attention, profits will be greatly stifled.

In conjunction with that truth is that leaders and managers must be executing their roles from that point of view. Our clients' leaders and managers know that they are the direct and most influential component to employee performance -- the buck stops with them - not the HR department. How they lead is integrated into how they get results -- it's results based leadership in a  human-centric way. They've learned, you can have both and in doing so garner more success and profits.

In my latest executive briefing Show Me The Money - Solving the Mystery of ROI to Unlock Profits & Increase Company Value, I describe these 2 tips as building behavior and financially literacy.

3). Be the kind of leader that seeks input, is willing to see issues, and looks for and welcomes a trusted advisor... knowing you cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking at which you arrive at it (Albert Einstein), as well as acknowledging sometimes it takes outside help or a fresh point of view to unlock hidden potential and profits. 

I had a client (president level) express embarrassment at the thought of getting help, suggesting that he should be the one doing what I was doing. The reality -- he was in a start up, buried beyond his capacity to address all the needs...completely overwhelmed. As long as he continued in that state, the company would continue to suffer. We contributed strategic support through leadership and management development, accelerating the changes he and his team desperately needed. We got them off of life support so they could breath again and eventually thrive.

In a previous post entitled What is Your #1 Leadership Asset?, I talked about how the thinking of a leader (leadership) is the limit to which a company will operate and grow and therefore needs to be nurtured. Take to heart the insights in that post.

Though there are only 3 power tips listed, they encompass a lot. You see, my experience (and that of my team) has helped serve my clients in one very significant way -- I have learned what the basic, essential elements are to working with the human side of a business enterprise to quickly get the best results.  We have stripped out the non-essentials -- the miscellaneous, buffet style hit and miss approaches common in the talent management - leadership development industry. 

Because of this, my clients can be confident of the following:
> that every dollar spent will not be wasted 
> they will garner a proven, substantial return 
> results will be achieved quicker
> they will gain a trusted advisor and partner who carries a genuine interest and is truly invested in their leadership and company success.

No matter how you to choose to go about implementing the above advice, I am confident that in doing so, it will have a substantial, positive financial impact.  In fact, depending on the size of your company, the moment you took to read this post could be your million dollar+ moment.

To a prosperous 2017!
JoAnn 
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Learn More About How We Can Help You Improve: Leadership, Management, Operations, Profits
If you want to learn more and read case studies in detail,  I recommend 2 of our latest executive briefings: 

> Show Me The Money! Solving the Mystery of ROI to Unlock Profits & Increase Company Value - click here to access This is one of the best, easy to read discussions on how to connect human behavior to profits (a critical knowledge point for all leaders).

> I've Been Around the Block a Few Times: Let me Save You a Few Trips and Some Money Along the Way (my 20th anniversary briefing of insights and advice, which includes my top 6 business building tips through the lens of leveraging the human element) - click here for a complimentary digital copy.

Both are full of unique business building strategies and concepts that have proven to impact any company's P/L. Want to improve your people management? Want to generate operational improvement? You'll want to get both!

 Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing.

// The Human Sphere™ is a holistic business growth consultancy that partners with forward-thinking senior leaders to bridge the knowledge gap in connecting people, performance, and profits. We focus on better business building by helping leaders understand and leverage human behavior. This knowledge gap is the most significant reason for operational problems.

// email: joann@thehumansphere.com // Ph: 888.388.0565 //


 Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing.




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