Sebastian Perrier

The bed-rocks of a winning organization:

Mission: announces exactly where you are going; shows direction into profitability. Every decision should be linked to the mission. The mission should be concrete and specific. The mission should be stated by the top management. The mission is the defining moment of the leader.

Values: describe the behaviours that will take you there, to the mission. Values should be stated by everyone in the company. Welcome debate, feel ownership.

Candor: be direct and honest – speak your mind. This is the biggest secret in business – forget about competition when your worst enemy in the way you communicate with one another internally. Gets more people into conversation, generates speed, cuts costs because it eliminates meaningless meetings. Lack of candid is selfish, because it makes your life easier to avoid conflict. Instead, to get candor, reward it, praise it, etc. Complacency can kill you.

Differentiation: companies win when their managers make a clear and meningful distinction between top and bottom performers. Cultivate a culture of strong and weak. Companies suffer when every person is treated equally. Managers have to take hard choises and live with them. 20 – 70 – 10 rule (bottom 10 has to go). For this you need to meassure performance.

Voice and Dignity: let people give the oportunity to speak out their opinion (not necessarily make a decision, but yes to speak out). And always respect people for their work, effort and individuality. GE implemented the Work-Out sessions. A 2 or 3 event days with everybody talking with a facilitator. Managers would commit to give an on-the-spot yer or no to 75% of the recommendations that came out and resolve the remaining 25% within 30 days. Manager will be present only at the beginning of the session and then disappear until the end of the session; returning only at the end to make a decision.

Nevertheless, a company is not a democracy. It is not that every idea should be put into practice; that is the managers role. But with these brain-storm sessions you get better ideas and suggestions. JW Book Quoted: “Why are you only paying your employees for their hands, when you can count on their brains too for free”. They need it and you too.

When defining a business, there are 3 things to consider: i) what are the customer’s needs and wants, what problem is our business solving; ii) who are those customers, who are we specifically helping and; iii) what technology are we using to solve those issues.

The Mission & Vision are the foundations for the company’s strategy; are the guidelines, the framework, the ground rules established to achieve the company’s goals.

MISSION (why are we here for?)

Is the main ideology of the organization, is the bedrock containing the purpose (reason for being) and the values (ideas, atitudes, thoughts, beliefs etc).

VISION (what do you want to achieve?)

The vision is a challenging aspiration of what you want to be when you grow up. It’s objective is to inspire the organization to work towards a goal in the long-term which is currently beyond their expectations. What are you really passionate about? What can you be best in the world?

OBJECTIVES

Set your vision into objectives. There are eight  objectives that every organization should have:

1. Market Standing
2. Innovation
3. Productivity
4. Financial Resources
5. Profitability
6. Management performance and development
7. Employees performance and attitudes
8. Public Responsability