Making Your Company Great

Making Your Company Great

I recently reviewed again the work of Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great.  It was a great reminder that getting your company and its people to mastery is not simple nor is it quick. It takes vision, time and above all uncommon discipline and persistence.  Many companies are looking for that magic bullet, the quick fix, to turn them around.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Collins relates it to the egg.  Nobody really notices the egg just sitting there until one day there is a crack in it and out jumps a chick.  The headlines are “Stunning Turnaround at Egg” and everyone is talking.  But look at what was happening inside the egg for those 21 days.  It was growing and developing, taking shape until it was ready to hatch.  Maybe a bit silly but none the less an example we can relate to.  The companies in their study that were determined to be great had such a story.

These companies were willing to take a hard look at their current state of affairs and make changes in critical areas including their people.  The made clear decisions about who was in the company and only the A-players were on board.  They had a clear vision, a clear why, and used that uncommon discipline and persistence to drive the “what” and the “how”.

Momentum builds slowly and with a lot of effort.  The fly-wheel was hard to get going.  There was a lot of the inertia of a body at rest to overcome.  While it looked like not much was happening to the outside world these companies were getting into momentum with the right people and vision.

The leaders of these companies kept things simple: one core focus that all systems revolved around.  They had such belief in the vision that they did whatever was necessary to become a great company that is a great place to work.

A great company, small or large, must buy into these beliefs.  Within our client engagements we look at the business vision, culture, people, systems and more.  We help them to understand what a team at mastery level is and help them to get there. We help the people be their best by understanding themselves and others better.  We believe that every organization wants to be a healthy organization that is a great place to work.  No company starts out to be mediocre or even good.  They want to be great, yet many times lack the tools and experience to get there.  They are also often too close to the business to see the path forward.

That’s why all organizations wanting to be great need a coach.  Who is yours?