Leadership: Fix Your Organization

Problems roll uphill.

Last week we talked about what’s involved in being the leader that others will follow. A big part of that was taking Responsibility: owning our own personal weaknesses and then determining to become the caliber of person that others put their trust in. Well, where else can you take responsibility for problems and set about fixing them? You know where I’m going with this: your business.

How much of what’s wrong with your business is your responsibility though? Let’s take a sampling of key problems that might need fixing:

1. Poor hiring.

2. Marketing isn’t good – not enough leads.

3. In Sales, ADL (Average Dollar per Lead) is too low.

4. Production rates or quality is low.

5. Facility is too small or depressing.

If you have these kinds of problems and no one is fixing them, who are you expecting to fix them? It’s your business, right? That makes these kinds of problems, your business problems – right? If there’s something wrong in your business, don’t expect someone else to fix it (unless, of course, you get/hire someone else who can fix it).

As the leader, you are the one responsible for fixing your organization’s weaknesses. That’s the job. You can provide systems and processes, lay out a plan of training, empower managers to make things right – but the fixing is going to start with you. That means you need to show leadership and courage.

Just how important is it for you to fix your organization’s problems? Very.

Let’s draw an analogy:

You’ve got a high-performance car. The wheels may be fine at 60 mph, but the car shakes at 120 mph. The intake manifold and valves were good until you hit 100 mph – now they just can’t let enough air into the engine. The transmission was fine when we were going slower – now we need another gear. If you want your car to perform at its fullest potential, you’re going to need to fix its weaknesses.

In your home improvement, home service business it’s your strengths that have brought you this far. But it’s your company’s weaknesses that set the height of its success. It’s up to you to remove the constraints on your business, so that it can perform at its potential.

You need to tune up your car so that it can take 120 mph without breaking a sweet. You want that machine to purr.

Do you have key constraints that are holding your business back? What are they? Can you name one now? And what are you going to do about it?

See you soon.