Newsletter - December 2008
How Is Your Business Really Doing? Ask These 10 Questions
December 11, 2008 - Sherry Sutton
One of the key 2009 career resolutions that you should make during these turbulent times is to ask questions about how your business is really doing. Nothing impacts your career more than working for company that is struggling to survive, unable to meet its goals, or all of a sudden pulls the plug and goes out of business. Approach this challenge as if you just started a new position at your existing company.
Question the question
The scenario: I started in a new position recently and want to be sure that I am looking at the business from all the right angles. It appears that we have a healthy balance sheet, but my gut instinct tells me we need to review more than the financials. What are the most important areas that I should consider?
Employees and management can easily stop short of conducting a thorough analysis of a firm, often looking only at the pure financials of a company. While financials are critical, it's smart to add more depth to your review.
Ask a lot of questions. Peel back the onion with more questions. "Question the question," some experts say. I included below a list of questions I use for my business clients. These cover important facets of a successful business. This isn't a definitive list, but provides varied starting points to evaluate a company's approach to business.
Look at underlying issues in each question. For instance, the R&R question goes beyond the need for people to recharge. One issue is whether people and systems are in place to run the business if the unthinkable happened. That question forced a CEO of a structural engineering company to an "ah-ha" moment. He was the only one who knew how to estimate a job. Not even his own son (also in the business) had been taught.
One company made improvements based on question number six listed below: "Measures." They had no metrics because they had no documented processes. Essential activities changed all the time, so there was no way to tighten systems or look at quality enhancement.
Here are the questions. There is no priority; they are listed alphabetically.
- Conviction: If this business were for sale, would I be willing to invest my own money to buy it?
- Customers: Do we know why people buy or don't buy from us? Are we are dependent on any one customer for revenue?
- Innovation: Do we implement at least five new ideas each quarter?
- Intelligence: Do we know how we stack up against our competition and why?
- Management: Are our managers excellent communicators, performance managers and people developers?
- Measures: Do we plan and measure our processes? Do we have goals and metrics for financial performance, operational effectiveness, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction?
- People: Do we have energized and talented people who could replace key corporate positions? Can we easily recruit talented new employees to support business growth?
- R&R: Are we prepared so our managers can really "unplug" at least two weeks each year and know that the business will run fine?
- Strategy: Do we have a written strategic plan that includes a mission, vision, short- and long-term goals? Is it communicated to all employees so they know what they need to do to execute it?
- Supplies: Do we have contingency plans for our sources of supply?
These questions can be applied company-wide or in a specific department. Constructive probing of these questions can spur new thinking and identify business strengths and weaknesses. The next steps are to capitalize on strengths; shore up weaknesses; prioritize the actions; assign accountabilities; and report on progress.
Now, what do you think about the future potential of your company? What about your growth or survivability potential?
Sherry Sutton is a business and leadership coach, member of the International Coach Federation, Charlotte chapter, author, and consultant with OI Partners - Compass Career Management Solutions (Charlotte). Contact her at info@compasscareer.com or 704-849-2500