Is The Tail Wagging The Dog? - Sunflower Business Consultants

How do you make decisions for your small business?

Seriously, think about it for a minute. When there?s a decision to be made (Do I want to outsource payroll? How do I reduce my customer churn rate? How to determine new product pricing?), what do you do?

I worked with a company once that was infamous for ?ready?.fire?aim?. They always found the problem (ready), the head guy enacted a solution (fire), and THEN, analyzed the situation to see what the best course might be (aim). Lots of lots of rework occur with this type of decision-making. And usually lots of hurt feelings and frustration too.

For companies that thrive entirely on group-decision-making, the process of finding a solution can be very time-consuming and inefficient. If everybody has to agree (and really, what?s the likelihood of that), then you?re going to end up with a solution that is either the path-of-least-resistance or you?re not going to end up with a solution at all.

Either way?either end of the spectrum allows the tail (the problem) to wag the dog (the company).

The goal, of course, is to have an efficient, creative, accurate solution-finding process.

Here are a few pointers that work for big and small businesses alike:

1. Anybody should be able to identify a problem and communicate it. If your company doesn?t reward problem identification, that?s the first problem to fix.

2. Set up a reasonable process for determining solutions. And stay with it. Don?t override it because the business owner got mad or there are other priorities?Having a set process for finding solutions; working the process?that?s an enormous step in ensuring continuity and growth for your company.

3. Reasonable process steps will vary from company to company but consider:

If there?s a problem, there needs to be one person who is ultimately responsible for finding a solution. Even if that person didn?t cause the problem, doesn?t matter. Even if no one person caused the problem. It?s not?punitive. Somebody?s got to own it; not a department or a group. Somebody.

That somebody needs to be given reasonable and regular support to get good input to find a solution. That means that people who are needed to help out, but are already tasked with other assignments, must be given?leeway?to help the ultimate solution-finder.

The solution finder must be ultimately responsible for delivering the best possible solution, given the timeframe and severity of the problem. Exact deliverables must be established upfront. What?s due?and by when.

Sometimes good people make imperfect decisions. If your chosen solution finder doesn?t do it exactly the way that you would do it (as a business owner), you?re going to have to be ok with that. Watch and monitor the outcomes. A different path than the one that you might have chosen may mean that the solution finder learns a new skillset for the future?letting your team grow, sometimes by allowing them to take a?circuitous?route to the finish line?that?s the hallmark of a great leader; a great company.

The decision-making process for a company will tell you more about the health of the company than almost any financial report you?ll read. Want to know who?s growing; who?s going to do well in the future? Look at how they make decisions.

Source: http://sunflowerbusinessconsulting.com/repswordpress/?p=236

fathers day cards ron paul basketball wives nigeria newspapers mac miller real housewives of orange county cpi