This week I was working onsite with clients looking at their systems.

Like many business owners, they were frustrated because their people were not being efficient.

“How can we improve our efficiency? they asked.

That’s a great question.

What do you think the answer is?

What do you think is the missing link?

If you said “Role Clarity”, you are correct.

“Role Clarity?” “How does that improve efficiency?”

If you think about it, your people come to work to do a good job and feel good about themselves and the contribution they make.

In order to do that, they need to know what they have to do, to what standard.

This is Role Clarity.

You and your people are clear on what they are meant to be doing.

When all team members know where they fit in the organisation and what they are responsible for, you’ll find your business becomes much more efficient.

We can also look at this from another angle.

So many businesses I’ve consulted with do not have a clear organisation chart nor do they have clear job descriptions. (Our preferred method for documenting roles and standards is Key Performance Indicators and Key Behaviour Indicators.)
Without these, people flounder and when they flounder, they become inefficient.

They often end up doing bits and pieces of other roles, which can be quite frustrating for the other and in one business I worked with, the owner was extremely frustrated because she said every job seemed to be done by two people instead of one, hence costing her double for the work.

Whilst having good systems and processes in place, along with well documented procedures and good training and the use of technology goes a long way to improving efficiency, they do not influence efficiency as much as role clarity.

Your assignment this week is to analyse your business or section. Do you have a current organisation structure and if so, is it documented?  Do your people know what they have to do to what standard to succeed in the role?

Reach out if you need some help.

I can promise you, once you are clear and your people understand you’ll find that the chaos, frustration and fighting drastically reduces in favour of a productive harmonious workplace.

And in case you are wondering what the other influencers are, you can check out my Blueprint for Business Freedom, which includes the 3 major areas to focus on:

1. High Performance People
2. High Performance Processes
3. High Performance Potential.

P.S.  Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thought delivered directly to their inbox.

Go to https://shirleydalton.com/Weekly-Thoughts.

This week I was discussing strategy with Mark See, a client turned colleague/friend (as most of my clients do).

In the 10-15 years that Mark and I have known each other, Mark has been very fortunate to have experienced working for a visionary entrepreneur who sold his business to a big corporation which became even bigger.

Mark gets what it means to be strategic.

He’s also forthright with his opinion, so you can imagine the response he got when he told his new corporate leaders that he would take action on a project “When we’re ready”.

He wasn’t resisting.

He wasn’t being petulant or rebellious.

He was actually being strategic.

As Mark says, “When you’re about to execute on a strategy, you can’t go too early and you can’t go too late.”

It’s a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  You have to wait until the time is “just right”, which in Mark’s words are “When we’re ready”.

Being ready means having done the research. It means having all the required resources. It means having the team trained and knowing what they have to do when.

There are so many moving parts to implement new business strategies that it absolutely makes sense to make sure you make your move when you’re ready.

I’m curious. What’s your take on this week’s discussion.

What’s your understanding of strategy and timing?

Are you confident enough to stand your ground and say, “We’ll take action, when we’re ready”.

Thanks Mark for such a lively discussion and for the inspiration for this week’s thought.

It came at the exact right time and I was ready. Grin.

P.P.S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thought delivered directly to their inbox.

Go to https://shirleydalton.com/Weekly-Thoughts.