How can businesses thrive, rather than just survive? Is there a roadmap for leaders to create an engaging culture of getting real work done? There is a proven method to improve business process efficiency.
Before diving into solutions, let’s look at the hurdles facing businesses today. In a disruptive marketplace, these issues can seem insurmountable and impact leaders from achieving robust success.
Strategic Planning vs. Execution
Ccompanies place unequal emphasis on strategic planning rather than execution and getting work done. Often, teams, leaders and project managers focus a significant amount of time operating in a continual state of planning.
A culture of weekly report-outs drives updates in project management software and constant tweaking to strategic plans. Attractive graphs, colored charts, and comprehensive status reports highlight where the team or organization wants to go. This emphasis of “more planning, less doing” can stymie efforts to actually get work done to impact the business.
Information Leads to Timely Decisions
Leaders don’t always have the information to make clear, timely decisions. Information should not be held hostage. When a systematic process exists, information freely flows, like trains running on time at Grand Central Station. Information is expected. It is anticipated. As a result, decisions can be made in real-time and everything can move forward. Time is critical and speed to decisions will impact the health of the organization.
Develop Your People
Too little emphasis, time and resources are placed on developing people. Employees are an organization’s greatest asset. A lack of commitment to helping individuals learn and expand their skillset negatively impacts the organization’s ability to strengthen and sustain itself. A cavalier mindset to swap out out-going and incoming employees at will cannot sustain a healthy culture and organization.
Importance of Communications
Poor communication contributes to a lack of clear direction, missed deadlines, blown budgets, and disenfranchised team members. Many employees and leaders alike call out the need for “better communications” within their organization. But what does that mean? And how do businesses find the nirvana of consistent, quality communications across an entire enterprise?
The RTG Management System provides a framework to create a culture of continuous improvement that is supportive of the organization’s strategic goals and direction. The system is build around the critical components of People, Process, & Communication. The following seven benefits of the RTG Management System are game-changers!
REAL-TIME PROBLEM SOLVING
There are always problems that occur each day within a business. For a business to succeed, problems must be solved. Some are small, one-off problems. Others are complex that span across work streams. Many problems are time-sensitive and urgently require a resolution. When an infrastructure exists as part of a continuous improvement culture with boundary-less communications, problems can get solved in real-time. As a result, timely decisions can be made that would otherwise derail a project, impact a deadline or produce a blow to the bottom line.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
This is more than the latest business buzzword. Employee Engagement is not fluffy jargon crafted by wordsmiths in the Human Resources department. Rather, employee engagement is built on a transparent culture where individuals are more than just involved – they are part of something bigger. When employees are engaged, communication flows, and trust abounds. As a result, employees are inspired, dedicated and committed to an organization, its values and success.
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
Imagine having visibility to what’s happening across the entire organization. A project that Marketing is working on has connectivity to Operations and each to Finance. A silo organization is so “90’s.” It’s also super ineffective. In a structured communications environment, individuals at all levels of an organization share information and status of projects. Relevant information flows across work streams contributing to a collaborative and agile culture. Information shared from multiple perspectives, inspires innovation, aligns company goals and maximizes accountability at all levels of an organization.
VERTICAL COMMUNICATIONS
It’s not about ritualistic messages dispensed from the Corporate Communications team to provide the latest company news. It’s also not about a well-penned communique from the C-suite. Vertical communication is a structured process whereby information consistently rolls up and down through each layer of a department or organization. It’s not just about top-down communications. It is as critical that information flow upwards, with the genesis from where work is really being done. This pathway limits information bottlenecks and contributes to timely decisions.
SAFETY ASSURANCE
Creating a healthy and safe working environment is foundational for all organizations. The importance of a safe workplace transcends business areas typically associated with the need to focus on safety, like manufacturing operations. Focus on safety is as important in traditional office settings too. Proper safety training, education, and regular communications positively impact expenses and productivity.
LEAD VS. LAG METRIC DECISION MAKING
As a leader, are you looking in the rearview mirror at your business data? What would happen if you looked at Lead data to evaluate the direction and health of the organization? Many organization’s respond to Lag metrics like yesterday’s news; reactively. Leaders who establish and monitor Lead metrics have the opportunity to make smart decisions that can steer the organization to improve outcomes.
REDUCE COST & INCREASE REVENUE
Every business strives to reduce costs while also increasing revenue. The focus on cost reduction and revenue is as timeless as business itself. When an organization creates a culture and infrastructure of continuous improvement, good things happen. Through engaged employees, everyone will continually find ways to cut waste and reduce costs. Through cross-functional and vertical communications, problems are solved, deadlines are met, and process efficiency increases, along with the much-sought revenue.
The RTG Management System builds upon Lean practices to improve business process efficiency within any organization. To succeed in changing your culture and experience all the benefits, it must start organically. The RTG Solutions Group team can assist your organization with business consulting services to transform your business from surviving to thriving!
Contact us today at 813-943-5727.