How a Business Framework Can Change Your Life

No great business stands still for long. And if you do, you’re likely to end up on life support, coasting through and failing to grow or make profits.  Or even worse, experiencing disruption over a relatively short period of time.

The businesses that scale up and make the best profits are those with a repeatable, reliable, predictable framework. A framework that will deliver a more streamlined and profitable business model.  The proven framework we use is Metronomics.

And, as we’ve previously highlighted in this series of blogs, progress comes from asking yourself:

1.     Where am I now?

Gain an understanding of your company’s key functions through a process called the Key Function Flow Map. This map becomes a scorecard or dashboard for your business.

2.     What can I do to make things better?

Come up with new ideas and look for a better strategy in the marketplace that clearly differentiates you from your competition.

3.     How do I know I’m making progress?

Track how well your differentiators are progressing and put real drive behind the evolution of your new business strategy.

In this final blog of the series, we’re pulling it all together. Read on to discover how you measure and push the progress and execution of strategy with an awesome team.

Aligning Your Priorities

Ultimately, your team will be responsible for executing most profit improvement changes and process efficiencies. It’s vital that your people be cohesive and have a clear idea of what they should be doing and how it fits into the bigger picture.

Every owner of a business thinks their people are mind readers, or that is the way they act. Good communication and clear direction are essential. Keeping it all in your head doesn’t work.

You want the direction and priorities of the business to be 100% transparent. You want to have the “right people” in the “right seats” doing the “right things”.

The optimal way to achieve this is by using one of the many cloud-based workflow and project management systems that are now available.

Without a doubt, the best cloud-based workflow we’ve seen is Metronome Growth Systems (MGS). MGS provides you with clarity over the 7 systems of your business framework and aligns your strategy and priorities across the whole business.  Here are the 7 systems:

1.     Cultural System – the rules for working with us.

2.     Cohesive System – pulling the team together.

3.     Human System – hiring and retaining the best team.

4.     Strategy System – to adopt a unique and valuable position through differentiated actions

5.     Execution System – to accomplish milestones toward your priorities.

6.     Cash System – to predict where you will be in the future.

7.     Coach Cascade System – to make everyone a coach to cascade the system throughout the organization.

MGS is a game-changer in terms of speed of execution. So much so that its use is a requirement of our coaching clients. And we pick up the tab since it makes such a massive difference to:

• Effectively track your priorities and get real-time progress reports of key performance indicators (KPIs)

• A paperless one-page plan that is a one-stop the whole team can view and refer to at any time, wherever they are.

• A personalized dashboard view of your progress tailored to each role and function in the business.

• Organized daily huddles, an easy way to prepare, manage and pull out ideas from your team meetings.

• A level playing field where everyone knows the game being played and their role.

Execute Your Key Actions

What you get with Metronome Growth Systems is a brilliantly clear overview of your business, its people, and how you’re performing.  This clarity relieves stress and inserts accountability into your processes.

Every person on the team knows what everyone else is working on and when it is due. There is real openness and transparency, as well as a shared feeling of purpose. And, ultimately, all this helps the business to execute plans better, faster, and more effectively.

Plus, as the owner or management team, you have much more control over how your people are working as well as where some work may be needed to keep the whole priority process on track.

You see everyone’s progress at a glance with stoplight charts that show red, yellow, or green, depending on performance.

You see who’s doing what and where they need help, making you more effective at resolving any bottlenecks.

And, you have clear visibility of issues that could clog the execution process, allowing you to fix them quickly.

The combination of a clear leadership style with the functionality and benefits of cloud business framework software gets everyone working together toward company priorities.

It’s about meeting rhythms, along with software, to keep things moving. That’s the secret sauce of running a business. No one talks about it, but it’s a vital condiment to add to your basic business menu.

Team Performance 

Your team is your most important asset and such a key element in the quality of your execution. Every person has their defined role within the bigger business structure, central to keeping the machinery running smoothly and delivering on your priorities.

Every team member will have a job scorecard along with metrics.  This scorecard is a list of the key priorities and corresponding metrics of their job. Your best hires want to know how the game is played and the scorecard is the solution.

HR is full of job descriptions that are mostly of little use to you.

They give you a list of responsibilities, but they give no measurements against those same responsibilities. In short, they don’t help you to know if this person is performing well or otherwise.

To understand each team member’s role in the business, you have to:

• Get rid of the minutiae of the job description.

• Focus on their most important duties.

• Find ways to track and measure those elements.

Topgrading scorecards are one way to measure the performance of each role in the business, based on the Topgrading concept developed by Brad Smart.

Topgrading starts by breaking down the talent and performance ability of your people into As (the top 10%), Bs (the top 20%), and Cs (the bottom 65%). The key aim is to make sure that everyone in the business is graded as an A or to work toward that hypothetical ideal goal.

By looking at the main activities for each role and logging what’s expected, you can set a performance standard. Then, measure how each employee tracks against that ideal over time.

Each person has their own scorecard with scores, a personal record of their performance over time, making it easier to see where alignment is slipping or where improvements can be made.

It also helps to drive increased performance from the whole team and to keep them aligned with those all-important key priorities.

Progress with Drive

By focusing on a strategy that distinguishes you in the marketplace through differentiated actions, and using all the benefits of driven leadership, measured performance, and software tools, you can change the speed, efficiency, and long-term profitability of your business while enhancing the joy of running a successful business.

Kick the tires with a mini Metronomics Bootcamp as an introduction to the framework at no charge. It's on us.  We will explore the Metronomics framework together and discover how it can save you time and money to get the business and life you want.  By using two of the tools, you will walk away with a Functional Organization Chart and the Key Process Flow Map both ready to put into action and start your framework.

Get in touch with Steve Moss at smoss@holdenmoss.com to book a session. We’d love to develop the business and life you want.