All businesses set out with the intention of making their strategic goals a reality. However, research shows that most fail to hit those targets consistently.
When a business isn’t progressing as planned, there’s often a tendency to blame it on the teams tasked with achieving those goals. This inevitably leads to changing some of those people. But while this might deliver a temporary uplift, more often than not, the business seems to stall once again.
The next approach is to change the strategy in the belief, or hope, that this will solve the problem. This may indeed be the solution for some, but for others, what typically follows is a disruptive cycle of replanning and reorgs.
Despite all the best efforts, the big results just aren’t forthcoming. Something isn’t working. Time to rethink, again. But what to change?
At this point, the leadership team, especially the CEO, begin to feel exposed, even vulnerable. Questions are being asked across the business, including by the board, about whether they are up to the task.
Our experience, gained from helping many businesses in this predicament, is that the main problem is a people problem.
But it’s not a question of ‘who’ they are, but ‘how’ they are.
Our findings show that the common link with all these businesses is they don’t have what we characterise as a ‘culture of high performance’.
The good news is that this can be changed.
As specialists in culture management, Culture Works Consortium was established to enable organisations to achieve sustainable growth by developing these high-performance cultures.
We define a culture of high performance as having a strong sense of purpose, effective leadership, and open and transparent communication, where trust, accountability and ownership are central.
These are just some of the elements that work together to create an environment where employees can thrive, and where the organisation can achieve sustainable success.
We work closely with senior leadership and their wider teams to identify the roadblocks to success. With a combination of coaching and team development tools and techniques, we help implement a people-centred organisational plan that builds a foundation of trust and ensures continuous improvement.
This way, we help businesses release the passion and full potential of all their people – the key to transforming business performance. And, at the same time, avoiding the destructive impact continual replanning and reorgs have on a business.
