Zealise Blog

Powering Business Success: The Sustainable Formula

I just came across the formula for business success! Who knew that business success could be boiled down to a simple formula?  I certainly didn’t. The formula is the brainchild of John Spence, a best-selling author, who is also a strategist, consultant, speaker and advisor to business leaders all over the world, so one would suppose that it is credible.

Anyway, the thought is intriguing and certainly warrants further investigation. So let’s take a closer look.

The Productivity Paradox: Why Business has a Role to Play in Reshaping the Global Economy

Improving productivity is a key objective for most organisations. After all it is the flip side of greater efficiency. Or is it?

You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the cutlery box to appreciate the extent to which technology has changed and is changing the way we live and do business. We are, however, paying a massive price for this. Unfortunately we are not yet fully recognising this and so are not only doing nothing to reduce this price, but actively exacerbating the problems that are building up as a result.  

What is HR anyway?

This week I attended a seminar entitled “HR Strategy and the Role of the HR Business Partner.” I was really looking forward to it and hoped to get a clearer insight into what an HR Business Partner was and what they did. What a disappointment!  

My key takeaways from the evening were:-

• There was no clear identification of what the role entailed; it varies from organisation to organisation.
• Results where business partners had been introduced were mixed and generally the business response seemed to be unenthusiastic. There even seemed to be some doubt as to whether the concept would last.
• Even the case studies illustrated that significant communication problems persisted.    

The elephant in the room was gap between “business” expectations of HR and how they saw the role and how HR saw their own role. This was specifically identified and yet no effort was made to address it or to identify how or what was being done to close the gap. Surely that has to be a primary function of HR partners? Perhaps, therefore, it was hardly surprising that the discussion revolved around generalities. The speakers talked about “strategies”, “measurements” and “the need to understand the business”, without giving any tangible examples of what they meant or how they were really adding value.

Consequently my lasting impression from the evening was that, “Nobody, including HR themselves, actually knows what HR is or what it stands for.” All HR professionals think what they do is important. Yet they seem to be incapable of proving it. If they did that gap would not exist. It is entirely of their own making.

To say this is ironic is the understatement of the year. But the irony is magnificently magnified by the fact that it is so unnecessary: the role of HR should be obvious to everyone. Let me explain why.

Customer Experience: Are You Setting Up for Failure?

I guess it’s true: you are never too old to learn. This past week I learned about the Customer Experience Index (CXi); used to benchmark customer experience. Maybe I am behind the times and you already know about it and even have it as a key performance indicator (KPI). If so, have you given proper consideration? If you haven’t you may well be setting yourself up for failure.  

Don’t get me wrong. Providing a good customer experience is, or should be, the single most important goal of any business. After all, if you don’t keep your customers happy you won’t have customers for long. And that means you won’t have a business for long, either! Thus customer experience should be the central axis of your entire business strategy. But, if it isn’t and you have Customer Experience as a KPI you are very likely setting yourself up for failure.

Naturally you will almost inevitably insist that your customer is central to your business strategy. I would, however, ask you to challenge yourself on that. For, if you do not look at every strategic and tactical decision you make without considering how it will affect your customer, you are deluding yourself.

Paradox of the Obvious

Perhaps one of life’s biggest frustrations can be something that seems obvious to us may not always be obvious to someone else. Maybe that is why toddlers go through the “terrible twos” – they are simply the manifestation of their frustration with adults who do not understand what they are trying to communicate.

That is why I so appreciated the words of Edward Morrow I came across recently: “The obscure we always see sooner or later; the obvious always seems to take a little longer.”  They are an amusing witticism that – upon deeper thought – demonstrates the wisdom of the old adage that “many a true word is spoken in jest.” Let’s take a moment to explore how relevant they are.

Customer Experience Comes from the Hearts of Your People

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” That quote from Simon Sinek caught my attention this week. It seems so obvious. Yet the majority of our customer experience tells us that it an extremely rare phenomenon. You don’t need any employee engagement statistics to tell you that the vast majority of people either do not love their jobs or the organisation they work for.

That is why a great customer experience stands out brighter than a comet flashing across the night sky. Let me share a story about what I mean.

Organisational Development is about Your People

Where do you fit on the chart below?

People Matter: My Vision

I see a day when all people of all nations will rise up and live their life to their fullest potential.

I see a time when people will no longer allow work to be a four-letter word and something to balance with life, but will value it as a vital, integral part of their life.

I see a world where work is not a bind but an opportunity for every person to celebrate the uniqueness of their being and the way they express who they are.

I see that each and every person will recognise their work as their contribution to humankind and make it a focal point of their lives. And that, as they do so, they will strive to maximise what they give and, in the process, optimise who they are.

I see that, as people recognise work as part of life and not an adjunct to it, they will regard their work as their business and do everything in their power to make it a successful business that blesses the people it serves as well as themselves.

I see people treating work as part and parcel of what they have to do, not out of compulsion, but simply to be the best they can possibly be; in order that, when their time is up, they can look back with pride.

And I envisage workplaces that recognises people for who they are; that sustain, nurture, encourage and enable them to be their best.

I see workplaces that cease to manage people as a resource and instead improve efficiency by encouraging, enabling and endorsing self-management. I see workplaces that acknowledge people for the assets they are, giving them back their independence and pride, and basking in the better results this brings.

I see workplaces where command is dead and control is a collective responsibility rather than an imposition: where organisations pursue purpose rather than profits at any price.

I see workplaces operating as single teams, where people do not compete, but work to support one another for the common good; of individual, business and the wider world.  

I see this new outlook bringing a new enthusiasm and creating a zeal that makes it all a joy. I see reduced conflict and greater co-operation that makes the world a better place and enhances its chances of survival.

I see you helping to make it happen!

(With acknowledgement to Martin Luther King)

Bay Jordan

Bay is the founder and director of Zealise, a company created to help larger small to large business organisations to properly value their people and thereby inspire them to optimise their self-worth and so engage them that they transform organisational performance and bottom-line results. Bay is also the author of several books, including “Lean Organisations Need FAT People” and “The 7 Deadly Toxins of Employee Engagement.”

People Matter: The Mantra of Leaders

“We JUST need to engage our heads and our hearts in a leadership process that validates the worth of every individual. Where everybody matters.” (My emphasis) What do you make of that statement? Do you agree?

You will not be surprised that I do. It comes from a Bob Chapman TedTalk that I found incredibly inspiring and I thoroughly recommend that you take 22 minutes to listen for yourself. Here is the link.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njn-lIEv1LU&feature=youtu.be A key takeaway is the phrase, “Everybody Matters.”

The conviction that people matter is the distinguishing characteristic of most truly great leaders and “people matter” should be the mantra for all aspiring leaders. Perhaps that is what is wrong with modern leaders. They focus on measurements, with money as the key measure, and not on people.

How red tape strangles employee engagement

My apologies to my devoted fans (you know who you are LOL) for being late with this week’s blog. I hope you will forgive me when I explain how this came about (and not want to strangle me!)

We are providing a training course for a large global client. They are running the course in a central European country, with the majority of the delegates coming from that country, but including some from other European countries. Nothing unusual there, but ...