Grow your business, grow your people!
Double-digit, hyper, performance, investment, #1, Top Line, Bottom Line, ultimate GROWTH!
The multitude of terms we hear to describe the reason we are all in business, to grow.
Whether it is growing profits, innovation, advancement, ideas, expansion, awareness or ourselves, the only way to do it, the only way we can ever deliver growth, of any kind, is via people.
Our fellow humans have all the answers we need to grow.
Any business starts with an idea, ‘someone’s’ idea and through conversations with other humans it grows. Simple!
So when we are looking to grow our business, gain those double digits, or grow anything in life, think about the people!
How often do we spend quality time thinking about who we have within our business today? How do we understand their talents? How do we get to use these talents to grow and deliver our vision? How do we set the conditions to enable these valuable assets to flourish themselves and grow our business?
A few tips to think about when you are looking to grow your business and your people:
1. Be clear: What specific growth do you need? Is it a number? Top or bottom-line? If it’s both, be precise. Get clear and communicate expectations. Is the growth a product, customers, market? What do you need specifically to move the idea forward? Skills, experiences, resources? How will you measure progress? How will you know you have been successful? Be clear with people on the desire and the tracking method, frequency and stick to it! Communications around the ‘growth’ plan need to be clear, consistent and continually reflected. A rhythm of connecting the vision and progress plus celebration, helps to build and sustain momentum. Take people on the journey, with you.
2. Understand who you have: Having a clear understanding of the talent within your business is fundamental. Knowing every single human, who they are, what their experience is, what fire is in their belly, is essential. Knowing this is powerful, matching your growth need with the in-house talent is a winning formula. When your people assets align with your vision and growth, anything is possible, at pace. If you don’t have what you need now, do they know other people that do? What is your skills gap that needs to be filled?
3. Expose the talent everyday: Of course managers are ultimately responsible for understanding their people, aspirations, skills, helping to grow those and keeping others in the broader business aware of the ‘talent’ available, but opening up the opportunity for people to showcase their experience proactively, whether that be formally with weekly show and tell activities, awards or having the opportunity to spot light great work ad-hoc, encouraging people to share skills, ideas everyday will help to grow your awareness of talent and enable you to match the talent to the growth plan whilst also providing more brain fuel for others to also grow!
4. Unify your power: Are your People and Business growth working in harmony? Every single employee should be clear on what ‘growth’ is being sought, the vision, the target but also understand how they can contribute. Everyone should be clear on how their brilliance connects to the growth and where they can focus their energy, their unique talent and passion to move the business towards the ambition. Do performance contracts align to the growth? Is the action and skills required clear?
5. Cultivate conditions for growth: If you are clear on the growth mission, understand the brilliance you have internally to apply to the plan, you are confident you have the right people on the right focus, the winning environment is one which is open, supportive of learning and cultivates a growth mindset. A culture that nourishes thought leadership and encourages proactive leadership and ownership. Growing your business is about growing your people. A culture that celebrates talent, encourages learning and sharing wins will naturally deliver the vision because people thrive in these conditions when they believe in the purpose, understand how they can contribute and are part of your winning formula for growth.
If you need help to identify the path to growing your business and people let’s have a virtual cuppa to see how I can help you unlock the power of your people.
