Keeping businesses vital and in good shape for whatever the future may have in store is no small task. Many businesses find they need to turn to outside help when they hit tough times or struggle to implement changes they need within their organisation. One professional who has a passion for helping businesses transition successfully through these tough and changing times offers practical advice and for key business owners and leaders offers a Free Session with top Melbourne Business Coach Stuart Hayes, which you can apply for by clicking the link.
For a taste of the practical and useful advice on offer, keep reading and if you’re game, schedule time to go through each of the four actions he outlines! Enjoy!
In a business enterprise, the majority of us have actually been alerted at some point in time that, “if you’re not moving forwards you’re really going backwards.” In essence, this cuts to the core of why adaptation is crucial to a positive and robust company. Strong companies change with the times and reinvent themselves. Unhealthy companies stonewall change, stagnate and then fizzle out. In this article we reveal the top key actions as recommended by expert Melbourne business mentor, Stuart Hayes to cause important changes to be implemented and integrated within your organisation.
Change is the central ingredient of growth and in business change calls for vision, a driving team and also a tight context if it is to be generated successfully and positively. This is why sound leadership is so vital in a business enterprise.
Yet while discussing change, it is very important to not throw the baby out with the bath-water considering that, on the other side to change is the importance of consistency which is likewise important, especially in processes that relate to product, quality, profit and perhaps, to an extent, organic development.
So, this pair of opposing concepts must exist side-by-side in a healthy company. How do we achieve that? The answer is to appreciate the fact that effective companies require change together with consistency. Change is the territory of leaders while consistency is the realm of managers. Thinking about these two side by side, it is not very hard to see why consistency and change (indeed managers and leaders) are regularly testing to join together.
In this article, I’m going to look at the core aspects of great leadership including how these aspects work together to produce positive and enduring transformation. As a professional leader, the formula I use to produce this transformation involves a straightforward 4-step process which I highly recommend, as follows below:
ACTION 1 –
ASK CRITICAL AND CHALLENGING QUESTIONS
I sometimes wonder whether it’s tougher to know where you’re really starting from or where you’re specifically striving to get to!
As business people and entrepreneurs, we commonly fall into the trap of looking at our business with tinted glasses then fail to truthfully grasp where we are setting out from – our ‘Point A’.
Recognising your true point A is not easy: it is only accomplished by having the nerve to distinguish, ask, then honestly answer all the in-your-face questions that are relevant to your business, your approach and how you’re progressing towards it. You know the questions; they are those tricky questions you routinely stumble over when they hit you unexpectedly in the middle of a relaxed dinner party conversation!
My suggestion
Pull on your thickest skin, have another person to identify then ask the questions that should be asked … and don’t enable your vanity to rob you of the truthful self-questioning that should come next. It may make the difference between your success and failure!
ACTION 2 –
FEELING THE REASON
Determining both the specifics of your ‘change vision’ (your ‘Point B’) in addition to the specifics of your deep-and-heart-centred-reason-for-change is similarly tough. If there is an absolute #1 key for achieving favourable along with lasting transformation, however, this is it.
Without specific details, your vision is merely a wish. Without a deep and honest reason as to why you wish to chase your vision, you will battle to inspire people towards it. People need to share your passion. To move your team, you have to be able to move your team.
Fortunately, those colleagues who do share and then welcome your vision will certainly stand with you and come to be the driving influence for accomplishing it. This is why exceptional leaders understand the stick is not nearly as mighty as the carrot.
My suggestion
Identify the types of personnel you will need to cause your change vision.
Spend enough time to recognize precisely who they could be then what it is about your vision that could inspire them.
ACTION 3 –
DEVELOP A CLEAR AND SIMPLE PLAN OF ACTION
From here on, the key elements of your success are adhering to what works, keeping it simple … as well as continuing to feed the enthusiasm that ties your driving staff members to your vision.
Having actually clarified your ‘why’, allocating undisturbed thinking time to defining the essential elements of your ‘how’ is integral.
My suggestion
Try to incorporate your driving group in this process:
Determine the repeatable jobs that will achieve your goal (keep these simple).
Identify both the resources you have available as well as the resources you are going to need (actually need!).
Figure out the finite checklist of things that can block your progress. Develop backup plans for the ones that are truly high-risk.
ACTION 4 –
ACHIEVE POSITIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CHANGE
Staying on track and attaining positive and lasting transformation is a 99% leadership and a 1% management mixture of fuel, context and accountability.
The fuel component is PR in its purest form. Its purpose is to develop and then sustain momentum: communicate the vision, impart the simple, repeatable steps, celebrate successes … and ultimately guide your driving group to do the very same things. Each reinforces that the change vision is correct and that the group’s approach is the most suitable one.
Notably, as leader, the code of conduct or ‘context’ you develop around your group and its behaviour is central to their capability to unify and accomplish outcomes. Your group will look to you to live by this code at all times and as you do it will start to take on a life all of its own.
This is where keeping on track and achieving positive and sustainable change needs your personal dedication, courage as well as discipline: following the message you teach and then connecting with your team in a genuine way when delivering it is important.
Your ability to create and uphold a powerful context is directly commensurate to your capability to do these things, and with a solid context your team will self manage; self align; move mountains; and then create the positive and lasting changes you are looking for.
My suggestion
Take a deep breath and be prepared to be human, to concede error and to be open to change yourself.
You will be respected and then followed as a leader in a far more compelling fashion when you have the nerve to do these things.
If you’re in Melbourne and you’d like any more advice on this or any other aspect of leadership in business then be sure to click on the link above and take advantage of this great offer.
