Here’s a comparison: think about your business as a car. What kind of car are you driving? A beater? Or a high-performance machine?
Think about these four components of whatever “car” you think your business is.
Power/Speed (Results)
What are you trying to accomplish with your vehicle? Are you in a ‘tractor-pull’ and so you require torque and power? Are you in a quarter-mile drag, so you require quick acceleration? Are you in the a long-mile race (e.g., Indy-500) and you need speed and durability?
Figuring out the type of results you want, influences the type of engine you need. No matter how well you run your business, if your engine is not built for speed (or power, or acceleration), you won’t win any races.
Engine (Design)
Is your engine designed for the work you need it to perform? What is the power and speed of your business vehicle? Does your vehicle “top out” at 120 mph (there are no speed limits in business, so don’t worry about my analogy)? Or do you have a vehicle that gets up to 190 mph or more? Having the right design will give you the pulling power or the speed you want.
Your organizational design is your engine for performance. Wanting one set of business results, but having an organizational design that is focused on another set of results means you will never get the performance you want. You will either be wasting money by putting too much of one thing into your design (power, speed, acceleration), or you will always be running short of the results you want because you engine isn’t designed to deliver those results. Most likely, you’ll have both problems.
No matter the design of your engine, without the right fluids, your engine will not run efficiently and powerfully. In fact, you may burn up your engine.
Oil (Standards)
What kind of oil do you need to put in your engine to keep it running smoothly and not overheating. If you are using ’standard’ oil in a high-performance machine, you are likely to lose performance and possibly blow your engine.
Your high-performance engine needs the right kind of oil – whether grade, or viscosity, other factors that keep your engine lubricated so you don’t have friction build-up and wear and tear.
Having the wrong performance standards and benchmarks within your organization will cause your business to run rough, to overheat, and to wear faster. The right standards and benchmarks will limit the friction you get among people and will keep the ‘temperature’ of your organization cool – all driving efficiency and productivity.
Even if you have the right oil in your engine, you have to put the right fuel in it as well to get the performance you want.
Fuel (People)
How are you determining the type of fuel to put into your high-performance machine? Running a performance engine on regular gas will decrease your performance. If you want to get the full performance from your engine, you need to put in the right kind of fuel for your engine.
The people you select, move, promote, have manage and lead, will ultimately determine how well your organizational engine will run.
What is Your Business Vehicle?
Fuel (people), oil (standards), and engine (design) all impact the results of your business engine. Are you running a beater? Or a high-performance business, and running it right?
Workforce Expertise:
Create your high-performance machine by:
- Defining the performance and results you want
- Creating the design required to deliver high-performance
- Keeping the business running smoothly with the right standards for performance
- Putting the right people into your organization, in every position
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