Pick your (improvement) battles

Are you improving the right results?

I always ask my clients to pick their improvement battles wisely. I say this because some results simply hold more weight than others. Lifting results isn’t easy. But some results have a compound impact when you lift them. Let me explain.

Stop signs

When we try to lift organisational results, we are often faced with big rocks:

Apathy: “We have already tried that”.
Barriers: Authority, hierarchy, time, budget, energy
Denial: “I think we are doing ok”
Control: “This is my area so…”

These are why we need to be focused, limited in our approach, and strategic to lift business-wide results. It’s not easy doing it and we don’t want to waste others’ time.

Often we are not focused on improving the right results because they are not seen as red or bad. They might be average or not in our top three. But the compound impact of some indicators being average creates a high alert scenario.

Up 21% in a year

Last year I helped a client lift their communication and change management score by 21 % (annual engagement survey). It was a huge lift and remarkable. With the right focus and advice they lifted their score from 59 to 80% in a year.

Whilst the score wasn’t bad to begin with it wasn’t great either. But they knew it was the right thing to focus on. They understood that gains made in this area would benefit the whole business. They went from average to great.

Average
When a score is deemed ok (like 59%), few feel compelled to improve it. Taking action on an average score, rather than a poor score feels unnecessary because it’s already above the line.

But lifting an average score is so much easier and beneficial. Think about it. Going from poor to average still only makes you average despite all that hard work.

This is exactly why lifting business results like communication, change mgt and collaboration are so vital, even if they are average. Their impact across the board is so important.

When we lift communication and collaboration scores, we lift everything. These results yield power across the whole business and benefit your employees, leaders and customers.

Every year I see comms, collaboration, leadership come out somewhere in the top 5 improvement areas for most businesses. What are you focused on improving? How would things look for you with an additional 21% on your scores?

Help to focus

I can’t promise you 21% growth this year. But I can promise you solid support, great advice and the experience that will get you there.