Having a passionate workforce, supported by the right resources to hand, and all aimed at delivering what the client wants will drive your business to success.
In this edition of the Quirk Solutions podcast we discusses the 3 components essential for successful business performance: Passion, Capability and Clients. The experiences I have had in my career have led me to understand that making sure that the people who work for you are passionate about what they are doing, that you’ve got the right people with the right skills in the right places is essential to your business success and delivery. However they can’t work successfully if they are unsupported so, it is equally as essential that they are supported by the right resources in terms of the infrastructure they have around them, the training they require and the equipment they need. And all of it is being aimed at delivering what the client actually wants, not what we think the client wants. We need to ensure that our work is continuously aligned with the strategy of the company and therefore propelling the client’s business from success to success.
These are the 3 components of business success and I enjoyed discussing them in this edition of the Quirk Solutions podcast.
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Full Podcast Transcript can be found here:
Hello folks and welcome to another of our podcasts. I often get asked what are the components for successful business performance and people will quote Porter’s Five Forces and things like that. But for me, essentially it boils down to 3 very simple factors. The first is passion, the second is capability and the third is client.
Passion
If the people in your organisation aren’t passionate about what you do, if they aren’t driven to succeed, if they don’t have a level of investment or emotional investment in the business or the organisation, then it’s never going to do very well because they are just turning up, day-to-day, with mundane routine effort. And they don’t really see the need to try that extra yard, to push that little bit further, that little bit harder. They just turn up day-to-day, doing what they need to do. And so quality assurance needs to be kept on top of and that side of things.
So, the questions really for yourselves as business leaders in that regard is, what does make people passionate? What makes people passionate about what we do? Why do I feel so much passion about my business and for the role that I have? And how can I generate that? If certain people aren’t as passionate as I am, why is that? Do I have certain demographics in the organisation? Do we have certain types of people in the organisation? And if we used to be passionate about this, but we seem to have lost it a little bit, how can we get it back? Passion is hugely important. It’s one of the driving factors behind people wanting to be there, wanting to do well, which starts straightaway to contribute towards a positive business.
Capability
The second factor is about your capability or your resources. And this is the finances that you have, the people that you have, the level of training that they have, the office space that you have, the IT infrastructure that you have. In short it is everything you need to be able to deliver to the objectives that you are looking to deliver to. So, running an eye over those capabilities and resources on a regular basis is really important because you definitely don’t want to have too much of resource. You don’t want to be inefficient but equally you have to be very careful to ensure that people have got what they need to be able to do what you are asking them to do. There is nothing more demoralising or demotivating than being asked to do something and simply not having the right skills, or training, or finances or resources to be able to deliver it. And then you start to make up little shortcuts which start to lead problems. So, looking at your resources quite carefully and making sure that you’ve got what you need and if you don’t, identifying where your gaps are and what you can do about them, is seriously important.
Client
The third factor I spoke about is client. Now, this is where lots of businesses think they do well but actually they don’t. So, if I was to turn around to people and say you need to know what your client wants, you need to be a client led organisation, a client led business, people will nod, agree and basically say ‘Yes, absolutely, of course we do that’. But all too frequently what I see is people believing they know what their clients want but not actually genuinely knowing. They don’t talk to their clients enough and engage with them and listen. They simply go in there, listen to what the client’s problem is and before the client has even finished speaking they are already deciding how they can make what they do already fit the solution. Actually going in and listening to the client, listening to their problems, listening to what they are trying to solve and building a relationship with them is vitally important.
I was told by a business leader not so long ago that if I couldn’t go into my five key clients and tell them what their strategy is, then I don’t know them well enough. And I thought that was really intriguing and I have used it since as a really useful way to engage with clients and a very different way to engage with clients. You can imagine it now, if I was to ring up a client and say can we get together and have a catch up, they’re just thinking ‘Here we go, same-same, run-of-the-mill, you are going to come in, listen to me, I’m going to listen to them and we can all go away’. But if I come in and say, ‘Could I have the opportunity to come in and talk to you about your strategy and what I believe your strategy is’, then that’s a very different conversation and now as the client I’m intrigued.
I want to see if this person that works with me does actually understand my business, does actually understand where I’m coming from. And it allows you a very different and engaging conversation to be had. During that point, the client can turn around and say, well actually, you’re right here, you’re right here but you’re not quite right here. And that allows you to get to know them better, to understand their needs better and how you could shape your organisation and what you do to fulfil the client needs more.
Getting these three things in balance is really important in my personal view. Making sure that the people who work for you are passionate about what they are doing, that you’ve got the right people with the right skills in the right places. Supported by the right resources in terms of the infrastructure they have around them, the training that they have, the equipment that they need. And all of it is being aimed at delivering what the client actually wants, not what you think the client wants. I hope this has been useful. Good luck and I look forward to hearing all about it. Thank you.
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