Today I am sharing some guidelines for handling a Turnaround of a company in trouble. These aren’t revolutionary and apply simple commonsense, but the key is to get buy-in with your employees and generate a strong sense of execution with everyone.
Here they are:
- Everyone has to know the vision and the strategy … everyone from the top to the bottom. Most important, first line managers are the key … they must do two things and do them well everyday … get their job done and work together.
- Setup an environment for success. When there is a win, everyone wins.
- Open communication throughout … tell employees what’s going on … fully and honestly. No closed books, no clicks or groups, no “No’s” … openness only.
- Everyone needs to know and believe that what customers want first and foremost is dependability and predictability. Anything short of these two factors can cause disasters.
- Predictability is a good thing. Almost everybody loves predictability because they have learned what you do well and what to expect. So embrace predictability.
- If you’re the top-guy, every problem is your problem. This is where Tom Peters’ MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around) plays into you being successful. Top-guy has to know his/her people and understand that they want to know him/her.
Finally, when you solve the problems and gain true dependability and predictability then you must learn/know that it’s a lot harder to keep things going great than to get them going great in the first place. This is where your steps of sharing the vision, setting a strategy, gaining commitment turn into results that impact the bottom line positively. This is what makes you a winner and where you want to be.
© Phil Hoffman 2014. All rights reserved
I Am Phil Hoffman 