You own your own business, you want to turn it into a great company; But you live in times of crisis, in times where global competition, in a time when financial resources are expensive. In times of crisis, it is difficult to increase sales, at least by way of price increases, profit margins are lower and fixed costs only increase.
What to do to make a profit in times of crisis?
What to do to achieve the desired results?
A lot of things can be done. Today I want to mention one of the keys to obtaining profits in times of crisis, it is one of the guidelines that we offer in our intensive consultancies: you must have disciplined, capable, committed and responsible people in your company for the desired results.
We express it with the following equation: D (C / C) R ^ 2
Have you seen how many entrepreneurs who want to be "well organized" invest effort and money in writing extensive, neat and very well detailed manuals of rules and procedures? They look beautiful on company shelves and libraries. It is unfortunate, but they do not assure the employer that their workers achieve the desired level of performance.
You need motivation that comes from "inside". Committed people offer you "the gold and the Moor", they say "married" to the company, many really are loyal to the company and have been occupying different positions for years. Some have even held the same position since they came into business. They are almost family. What's more, many times we are with them longer than with the same family.
But neither do these "committed" workers help the company make a profit in times of crisis. Something more is needed. Today I will talk about the " commitment to the desired results ".
The effort that leads us to undertake a project does not always produce the desired results. For several reasons. That is, the fact that we undertake and strive does not guarantee that we will achieve those goals that we so much desire, in the case of entrepreneurs: more profits and more wealth.
We need "successful behavior" to achieve those goals, to achieve the desired results. A "successful conduct" allows us to stay focused and concentrated on the tasks and activities that do produce results, avoids the dispersion of efforts, the time and resources invested in tasks or projects that distract us and take us off the proven path.
What happens is that things do not always go as we wish. In times of crisis, the person gives up, renounces or simply puts aside what he has set out to do. In the case of our collaborators, they postpone or do "half-heartedly".
I said before that the manuals of procedures or exhaustive job descriptions are not enough for the worker to offer us better levels of performance.
It is necessary for each member of our work team, all of them, absolutely all, to be clear about their mission within the company, the main expected result of their function, the precise objectives of their position. This can be done in ten pages or more, which they must memorize and review as if it were a "doctrine". Job descriptions are helpful; but they do not guarantee results. What do I recommend to my clients? Precisely define for each person on your team a primary desired outcome.
Being accurate means that it can be measured and viewed. Look at this case. The manager of a store is told: "I want you to increase your sales by 10% compared to the same month last year." It seems like a well-defined goal; however, something is missing. The one thing it lacks is that the result should hint "how do you do it?" As an entrepreneur, you could try something like "Last year your customers average ticket was $ 5, the result I expect is $ 6."
The same, you could tell the Marketing Manager, who obviously should improve our company's participation in the market. We could set very refined goals to measure it; But what do you think of this: “467 people are coming to our stores per month, of those only 223 they are buying an average of $ 5 each time they buy. The result I expect from your work is that you can get 750 people to our stores per month, that 400 of them buy and that the average ticket is $ 6 ”
When you manage to define in a single sentence the RDP -Main Desired Outcome-, you only need a disciplined, capable, committed and responsible person to achieve it.
It will be easy for him to memorize that little sentence of one or two lines, only. It will be clear to you when the employer calls your office and says: "Ramón, I am not satisfied with your work, you are not achieving the desired results." This friend Ramón may be “your friend of the soul”, a very close relative and is willing to “go to war” with you; but it's not enough. Ramón must achieve the desired results. Ramón must develop the skills, abilities and abilities necessary to carry out his position efficiently and effectively.
We will talk in other articles about how to get our workers to develop those skills and abilities.
Before finishing this article, I tell you something. A few months ago, a consulting client asked me to describe the position of their general manager. I explained to him that the functions of a general manager are: planning, organizing, directing, controlling and coordinating the human and material results in a company. It is a theoretical definition. He wanted me to write him a comprehensive description of that position. That doesn't appeal to me much, which is why I mentioned above. So I proposed the following RDP, Principal Desired Outcome: " The CEO must get all his people to do what they have to do." At first he did not like it very much; but still using it.
Leave your comments, make your inquiries and send me other topics that interest you so I can develop them and thus answer your questions more thoroughly.
