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Note from Phil: This is a guest post from Martin O’Neill, author of the new book Building Business Value. This article provides some excellent insights into how to get deeper understanding of the business so your team can best align itself with the business and remain (or become) relevant.
“The mind is like a parachute and works best when it’s open.”
For every manager and business there is always a need to create the right vision that supports the long-term value of the company for both the employees and potential partners, customers and investors. The process begins by asking a series of questions that lead you to what the organization will look like. This is also a valuable exercise when you’re re-examining the strengths and weaknesses of an organization and your team during this turbulent economic times.
The first question to ask is, “What will the organization look like in the near not-too-distant future?” Have your team work on answers that go from one to three years from today.
It’s very hard to have a crystal ball for the future, but other more important questions will flow from the main question and effectively answering those will give you a better roadmap to the company’s future.
Here are ten questions you can ask and discuss that will guide you to a deeper understanding of where you are in the marketplace, how employees work on your teams and how your management can expand the mission of the company.
Remember, in order to achieve not just a workable vision, but also buy-in for that idea, the entire leadership team must be involved in its conception. The collective wisdom of the entire team will create a possible, practical outcome of where the organization can go. It’s important to make sure that one egoist isn’t dominating the conversation, grandly announcing that “we can do this” when there’s nothing in the company’s history that indicates that it’s possible. It’s also important to make sure that a diverse group of people is behind the ideas that are being promulgated. Otherwise, a big chunk of the team will be alienated.
10 Questions for Deeper Understanding
- How do you see your job changing? (Ask this for each person on the team.)
- Who is affected by our product or service at this point in the future?
- What are our customers doing differently?
- How has our product or service changed?
- Who is using our products or services, and who has stopped using them?
- What are your unique contributions as an organization? What is our company’s purpose?
- What skills do we and our staff need in the future that we don’t have now?
- How do we recognize people for what they contribute?
- What are the core values of our organization and how are we meeting them?
- What are we doing to ensure there is a legacy, a next generation of leaders?
It’s best to discuss each of these questions over a twenty to thirty-minute period and give everyone the green light to say or contribute whatever comes to mind. Keep in mind this process is all about opening people’s minds to what the future can be and it is just the beginning.
About the author: Martin O’Neill is the author of “Building Business Value,” and speaks and consults to midsized companies all over the world. He is a principal with Corsum Consulting, a strategy and management consulting firm focused entirely on building value for companies in the middle market. Martin is also an active blogger and his blog “Building Business Value” can be found at – http://www.corsum.com/Building-Business-Value-blog/ .
Parachutes photo credit to Army.mil
