The blood of business – 3

Order is the precursor of growth. People generally love to function in environments where there is order. People from the developing world emigrate to developed nations fundamentally because the systems and structures in the latter environments guarantee an enabling environment for function and progress. Order creates structures and the systems by which organizations run.

Order signposts predictability of outcomes, barring any unforeseen circumstances. The GPS gives you the distance between where you are and the desired destination in both miles and duration of the trip. All things being equal, you can decide when to leave home and be assured that you will get to your destination by the time indicated.

So, it is not unusual for someone to tell another person at the other that he is ‘x’ minutes or hours away! You dare not try that in Lagos where, even when the GPS has indicated time and distance accurately, the chaos in traffic is guaranteed to mess up the best of projections! Structure gives the employee a sense of security, a predictable reward system that he can look forward to and which motivates him to aspire to grow in and with the organization. I once worked in an organization where titles didn’t match function and the CEO hired and fired by word of mouth and sometimes from the gate of the company as he was driving in! Not even those of us in management were spared that ignominy. In such organizations, a promotion was nothing to rejoice about. You could be fired the next day!

Furthermore, structures give an indication of fairness in the reward and deterrence systems to ensure that good people don’t suffer for the dysfunction of the deviant ones.

However, systems and structures must be subject to an overall vision and crafted to serve people before people can be expected to give their loyalty. As good as they are, nobody likes to feel like he is a slave or an expendable equation in the running of a structure. The emphasis must not be unduly placed on what people do for the structure (important as that is) but on what the structure does for the people who function in it. Systems don’t run themselves. People run them. Leaders who forget this will lose good people due to rigidity of a structure that may have lost its relevance. When structures no longer serve the purpose of vision attainment, they are ready for dismantling in order to create more meaningful ones. This is what reinventing is all about.

Point people to a vision of something greater than them. A dream, a goal, a future in which they can feature. Something for which they are willing to trade the present. Something that inspires them to get up in the morning and hasten to get to work!

Leadership is the rallying force for common objectives in any organization. Everything rises and falls on leadership, according to John Maxwell. The quality of function and life in any organization is directly linked to the quality of the leadership of that organization. Before demanding productivity from people, the leader must first inspire them to becoming the best of themselves. Before he can successfully implant a vision, the leader must first be a peddler of hope! People will literally break their backs to satisfy someone they can look up to as leader. Where that inspiring leadership gap is created by those in the boardroom and in management, the people find it among themselves. Consequently, in many organizations, some junior staff or middle level officers command greater influence among their contemporaries than the CEO or any of the directors who they only defer to because of hierarchy and not because of loyalty. Consequently, when the one they respect calls for a showdown with the management, they don’t hesitate to comply, damning any consequences.

If you lead a team, can your team members have the assurance that you will not sacrifice them or throw them under the bus just to save your own face? Can anyone you lead take your word to the bank? If you rise up and call, “let us move…”, how many people will follow you? To be effective, leaders must first build the bridge of trust. When people know that you have their interests at heart always, they will give you an arm and a leg when you need them. Far too many leaders forget that the people who work with or do business with them have concerns and questions that they grapple with regularly and which if not addressed can affect function. If an employee or a customer’s marriage is on the brink of collapse, or he has recently lost someone dear to him, it is absurd to expect that such a person would function optimally at work. Some leaders just don’t care, even if that person had been among the best workers. If a customer who had been loyal to your brand in time past is no longer buying from you, do you care to ask why? Leaders who are only good at managing structures don’t build people. They use people. In time, people sense that and they resent it and will patiently wait for payback time. When the organization is going downhill, they will gladly serve as its undertaker!

To see your enterprise grow, you must Empower people. An empowered workforce will take the organization to the stratosphere. An empowered clientele will remain faithful evangelists of your brand. Some organizations empower their big customers through lines of credit. Some do it through generous discounts on volume purchases. Others do annual awards and recognition. To empower your first customers, the staff, engage them regularly by seeking their input in matters that affect the organization. This gives them a sense of stakeholdership. When they are part of the decision-making process, they are less likely to sabotage its execution and will fight anyone who does!

Furthermore, build the culture of learning into the organization. Not to build your people’s capacity is to lay the foundation for the eventual destruction of the structure you are trying to build. Turn situations into learning sessions. I have had some CEOs tell me that they don’t want to spend so much resources training people only for them to leave at the end. My answer to them is that training them even if they eventually leave is more profitable to you and the organization than not training them and they choose to stay!

Do not withhold promotion and commendation when due. Everyone loves to be appreciated. Elevation and appreciation when due, are sure ways to command dedication. Even if you pay a good salary, design a model of appreciation to your staff and customers that demonstrate that you value their contribution to the growth of your enterprise.

Delegate responsibilities and step aside to allow the delegate to perform. Delegation without the power of execution is glorified mockery of the employee’s capacity. It is the pastime of leaders who suffer from the Messiah Complex and a way to set others up for failure!

Treat people well and they will in turn see to it that your business never suffers economic anemia.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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