How organisations turn the tide in their favour

In its heydays, the Nigerian Wire and Cable Plc, Ibadan, was one of the enviable organisations. It was the dream of the employment-seeking young graduates and the nightmare of its competitors as they tried hard to match its stride. It dominated its market wholly as its products were the toast of organisations and individuals across the West African sub-region. At that time, it had orders for its products all year-round. Money was rolling in, good profit was regularly declared and the owners were happy with the management.

But at a point, there was a change in the tide. The bottom line got lower month after month. Not unexpectedly, the Managing Director was worried.

His heart sank each time he got the company’s financial report. He was at a loss about what to do. He invited his finance team to brainstorm with them but the situation did not improve. He had series of meetings with the marketing team but the trend was not reversed. The top management team got together on a retreat but the result did not get any better. The result got worse with every passing month because all the teams only did more of what they had always done. When the situation did not change, the board was left with no choice other than to change the CEO.

But why did the CEO and his team find it difficult to turn the tide in favour of a once thriving company? The problem was that the CEO was obsessed with the result. He was so focused on the result that he failed to take the steps that would have revived the fortunes of the company. He devoted so much energy and time to the result that he neglected to do what he needed to do to stem the falling fortune of the company.

Results are nothing but feedbacks. The feedback cannot change unless the inputs change. If the current result does not represent your aspiration, focusing on it will only lead to frustration. If the results you get are not the results you want, you will have to change the activities that produced the result. Leaders are usually drawn to result because that is what they have to show the world as the proof of their ingenuity and productivity. But leaders must learn to detach themselves from results and focus more on the process because the result can only change when there is a change in the process that produces the result. So, to get better results, focus on change. The journey to success begins with the realization of the need to change.

What must change to have an improved result?

To get a new result, certain things must change. These are some of them.

The thinking must change

A new thinking precedes a new result. This is because it is the thinking process that determines the action that is taken; and the action taken determines the result that is produced. Therefore, to get a result that is different from the current one, there must of necessity be a new thinking. When the thinking changes, the result will also change. A company is only as prosperous as the level of thinking it engages in. Great Organisations invest so much in thinking that they are always ahead of competition. They have think tank teams whose business is to engage the intellect in solving immediate, emerging and long term problems. Because these Organisations have invested a fortune in getting the thinking right, they are always innovative and are always a step or two ahead of competitors. That is why they are better than the rest. The strength of Apple Inc. is the amount of resources it has committed into thinking. The Coca Cola Company has been profitable for over a century because it has invested a lot in thinking. Organisations that invest their resources in thinking are ready before the trend changes and are able to stay afloat while others are swept under by storms.

Albert Einstein, one of the brightest minds that ever lived, said no problem can be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it. The import of this is that since every situation is a reflection of the thinking that produced it, changing the situation will not happen until the thinking that produced it has changed. Better results are produced when the thinking is elevated; improved results are guaranteed when the thinking gets better. Therefore, leaders must devise means of elevating their thinking so that they can have a new result.

When St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city after Moscow, was being laid out in the eighteenth century, the officials in charge had a challenge with removing heavy boulders which a glacier from Finland had brought to the city. There was a particular huge rock which covered the path on one of the principal routes that had been planned. The officials asked contractors to submit bids for its removal. The amount demanded by contractors to remove the boulder was prohibitive but they were asked to go ahead. However, none of them was able to move it because of the low level of technology available at the time. While the officials were contemplating on what next to do, a peasant approached them with a lower bid. Initially, the officials thought he was a joker but one of them said there was no harm in giving the peasant a trial since others had failed. So, the peasant was asked to go ahead with removing the rock.

The following day, he appeared on the scene with other peasants who were holding shovels. They dug a hole close to the rock. When it was wide and deep enough to cover the rock, they used timber props to roll the rock into the hole, covered it with dirt and moved away the remaining dirt.

The peasant was able to get result where established contractors failed because he thought differently. While others were engrossed with moving the boulder away from its location, he devised a means of burying it in its location.

When the thinking is right, the result cannot be wrong.

Change to meet more customers’ needs

A business exists to create customers, according to Peter Drucker. Businesses create customers because no business can survive without customers. Businesses do not exist to satisfy the owners or the employees. Therefore, every action of a business must be targeted at pleasing customers with a view to increasing sales. A satisfied customer is a company’s best marketer. But when customers are displeased with a company, hell will be a child’s play.

Every organization has two categories of customers; the current ones and the potential ones. The interest of the two must be protected for the company to be thoroughly successful. The current customers will take the company from its present level to its future level but without potential customers the future level cannot be sustained.

Organisations often fall into the error of trying to woo new customers at the expense of the current ones or neglecting getting new customers in a bid to retain the current ones. The way to go about it is to seriously engage the current ones in such a way that they will not think of looking elsewhere for the satisfaction of their needs, while tempting new customers with irresistible offers. The more customers a company has, the more prosperous it becomes.

To change the result, change your customer experience so as to boost patronage.

Tweak the corporate culture

Every workplace has a culture. If the culture is right, the output will be right and this will impact positively on the result. A negative culture cannot produce a positive result. Therefore, it is incumbent on the leadership to institute the right culture in the system so as to boost employees’ productivity. A workplace culture is the domineering mindset among the people; the way workers feel about themselves and the place they work. The mindset affects everything about the people and the organization because it determines how the organization and its workforce are perceived by the outside world.

When John Ammerman assumed office as the CEO of Mattel Inc, the toy making company, had been faced with almost an unstoppable haemorrhage. For 12 quarters, it recorded huge losses. After going round the company, Ammerman realized that the culture in the company was toxic and knowing that a toxic culture would produce gloomy workers which would continue the trend the company had experienced, he decided to change the culture. By merely tweaking the culture and making the workplace livelier, the company experienced a tremendous transformation. From a loss, it recorded huge profits. One of the company’s products, the Barbie Doll, went on to become one of the most successful toy lines in history.

To get a different result, emplace the right culture.

Update your technology

What is paramount to the customer is his convenience. The customer goes with whoever gives him the most convenience at the least cost. Deploying the right technology makes it easy for Organisations to satisfy their customers’ yearnings. In addition, deploying the right technology makes a company swift and lean. Organisations that consistently update their technology usually outperform those that are conservative with their use of technology.

Change the strategy

Strategy is always a work in progress; it has to be tuned and fine-tuned all the time until it produces the desired result. Great organizations are never satisfied with a strategy, they keep working on their strategies to get the best. The reason is that human societies are dynamic; they keep changing. Every change in the society will require another look at the strategy deployed by a company because an outdated strategy cannot meet current demands. Not deploying the right strategy can result in customers’ dissatisfaction. Customers’ dissatisfaction is a dangerous development because it means that the customers are ready to jump ship. When customers jump ship, the company will sail in troubled waters and may go under unless the trend is arrested.

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