Webinar Recap – Building Strong Leaders: Driving CEO & Team Performance

In Building Strong Leaders: Driving CEO & Team Performance, Verne Harnish discussed the multiple factors that play a role in driving performance, including your team’s alignment and several implementation tactics to help enforce your game plan.

Nailing your execution is essential to success. If your execution falls short, your other operations will fail as well. The execution phase is where most tend to stumble because they know which goals they want to reach, but do not have a clear idea of how to get there.

 According to Verne, miscommunication is the biggest problem we have in business. The most important thing a business leader needs is firsthand intel from employees and customers. A synchronized team is one that communicates and collaborates frequently. Building relationships with your employees through communication also helps create an inclusive culture of productivity. Ultimately, it comes down to 3 key disciplines:

1. Alignment of Priorities

The problem for most business leaders is that they are focused on too many priorities, or are simply focused on the wrong ones. It’s easier to track progress when you focus on one main priority instead of trying to juggle several.

Start by clarifying your goals, and then narrow down the priorities you need to focus on to achieve those goals. Verne recommends using FAST Goals to help you get started. FAST Goals are:

Frequently discussed as to keep everyone focused and motivated;

Ambitious enough that they are exciting, but not so big that they are demoralizing;

Specific so they can be easily measured;

Transparent so that everyone is on the same page and knows what is expected.

2. Data-driven approach

Imagine a sports game with no scoreboard, and we all have to wait until the end to find out who wins. 

“It comes down to having the conversations around the right data to figure out the most important thing we need to do today, this week and moving forward,” Verne says.

 Because numbers don’t lie, all data feedback is critical. In order to properly use data in your business, you must employ these practices on a regular basis. Verne mentions that we need at least 6 points of data to start seeing a trend. If you only measure one piece of data each year, it will take 6 years before you have any usable data. This information collected over time is what gives you the insight to detect patterns and make smart decisions moving forward.

Align takes advantage of the data-driven approach especially when it comes to collecting employee feedback and assessing employee engagement. A strategic way to gauge employee satisfaction is with Align’s eNPS surveys, the Employer Net Promoter Score tool that allows you to send a one-question survey to all your employees asking them to anonymously rank their satisfaction at work. The software then turns that feedback into a trackable metric that you can reference anytime. You can easily set the survey to go out on a recurring basis to ensure your metrics stay up to date.

3. Daily Huddles

“The single most important routine is the Daily Huddle,” Verne says. The Daily Huddle provides an opportunity to check in with all team members and get an idea of what everyone is working on. It’s a time to debrief, collaborate, and provide insight. 

Verne highlights the most important parts that make up a successful Huddle: 

• What’s Up? – Discuss the specifics of each person’s top priority for the day.
• Critical Numbers – Focus on the important numbers that drive the business on a daily basis.
• Stucks – Roadblocks are the most important thing to discuss in a huddle. You will find that even just by verbalizing an issue, you can stimulate productive conversations and that other team members may have answers for you.

As you focus your efforts on execution, remember that establishing a strong bond within your team is necessary to maintaining a productive culture. Transparency in a business can be sensitive, but it’s critical when it comes to breaking down barriers and incorporating feedback. Verne emphasizes the role of peer pressure, as peers tend to learn more from each other than they do from a team leader. The advantage of having transparency in a business is allowing all team members to see every important metrics so that everyone is involved and knows what is expected.

Thanks to modern technology, business leaders are able to prioritize transparency and communication among their teams. Technologies like Align allow you to track metrics in real time. Employees at all levels can benefit from the software, as CEO’s need a tool to keep track of cascading priorities and metrics that can quickly become an overwhelming nightmare of Excel spreadsheets. Align is the implementation tool that prompts you to enforce your business habits and makes it easy to track your success.

If you are interested in learning more about the software, click here to schedule your demo today.