OBM: The Survival Guide
Succeeding in tough time's means
staying committed to your Game. No Excuses.
A Letter to the Open-Book Community from
Your Friends at Great Game:
Managing through difficult times requires
the full engagement of a focused, educated and informed workforce. Success
will have everything to do with how well you communicate and encourage
your people to stay in The Game. Show the big picture, stay focused on
your critical numbers; make sure your people are acting on the right
financial drivers; and persistently - let me repeat - persistently
keep score and follow the action. This is what rallies an organization to
face challenges head on. This is what provides the focus, the alignment
and the sense of urgency we all need in an economic turmoil. And most
importantly, this is what brings people together.
Open-Book Management has long been
embraced by leaders with the courage to share practically everything -the
good, the bad and the ugly. While communicating effectively is always
important, it takes on a much greater significance during tough times. As
Open-Book leaders we must continue to talk candidly with our people about
the realities of the business and the marketplace. Keep in mind "what your
employees don't know can hurt you." The unknown can create a huge
distraction in the organization and if you don't let your people know
what's really going on, they will certainly fill in the gaps. An Open-Book
approach can drive out negative rumors and help eliminate the emotions and
fear that comes with uncertainty. Emotions can cloud our judgment, but
communicating with the numbers can put everything back in perspective.
It's time to play smart and how you get smarter is by studying the numbers
and listening hard for the stories behind them. That's where you will find
the opportunities and the smart way forward.
As Open-Book leaders, communicating with
your people should be your number one focus. Leaders should never delegate
communication ... and they should do it face-to-face. We should
communicate in a way that creates healthy dialogue by giving our people
frequent opportunities to ask questions and openly discuss the realities
the company is facing. If you give your people the opportunity to talk it
out and discuss and debate the challenges, they will help you find
solutions.
When we do communicate the realities of
the marketplace, we should be very careful not to blame everything on the
economy. This implies the situation is out of our control and sends a
message to our people that all we can do is ride it out. When in fact, we
must fight it out. Direct your energy towards the opportunities and
give your people something positive to focus on and reach for.
Successfully weathering the storm will
depend on how well you maximize one of your only true competitive
advantages, your people. We should have confidence in our people and trust
them to find new ideas and ways to work through these tough times.
Leverage the knowledge and expertise of your team. Motivate and engage
your people in the business by including them in the problem-solving
process and enable them to act and take responsibility for improvement
ideas. Try not to be single-minded on cost savings and driving
optimization. Encourage innovation and creativity. Find ways to take
advantage of every opportunity and build on them to get even better.
And don't forget to keep your people
fired up. People rally towards leadership that is positive and optimistic.
Leaders need to stay energized and show true resilience. Create small
wins; the big ones may be hard to find. Those small incremental
improvements will make all the difference. Give your people a chance to
win and then celebrate, celebrate, celebrate when they do win.
And finally, sometimes success can simply
depend on what outlook or attitude you choose to take. So stay energized,
stay positive, and most importantly stay in The Game.
All the Best,
Rich Armstrong
President, The Great Game of Business
Back to Great
Game main page
|
