The job of a CEO, a business manager, an owner-operator, or whatever you’re calling your leadership position, is frequently involved in hands-on operations, sales, problem solving, receivable collecting, bill paying, etc. Being busy, busy, busy, and thus, you are doing everything you have to do, so you think.
The reality is that while most CEO’s are trapped in task oriented activity, there is a better plan…train, plan and review. Yes, this is the job of the leader.
Train
Constantly training, cross training and upgrading the skill level of your employees be it direct hands on training, hired training, or managing employee training by employees, is the first goal. Training is the lifeblood of a business and successful implementation of a growth plan. Further, this combined with a career path development process, will result in the first stages of supporting a successful business. Further this effort will support greater employee satisfaction, long term employment and higher quality goods and services.
Frequently, training is learned on the job without thought or purpose, usually based on learning as you go, with tips from the person closest to you. It’s inefficient, non-productive, less successful, uncontrolled, undisciplined, erratic and sometimes even dead wrong.
Training must be done with purpose and definition, focus and purpose, and designed to lift the skills of your employees, sharpening their abilities, building on their career path.
Plan
The second job of a senior leader is to plan: short term, medium term and long term. He needs to plan operations, plan fitness and plan sales and marketing on the short and medium term while plan growth and development for the long term. Planning is the lifeblood of growth and development. No plan and you remain flat and directionless, doing the same things you always do, plan and you will advance the mission, no plan, no advance.
Review
Once a plan has been established, there must be benchmarks and key indicators, ways of measuring productivity to determine where on the development path the program is, how successful the growth plan is being implemented. This will allow for accountability, a key requirement for successful growth.
How to manage your business on an operational level, the operational manager? Track, monitor and control.
Track
It’s all about checking the progress of the men, holding your men accountable for pre-determined goals and objectives and tracking their productivity. This completes the circle, setting goals and then measuring success and giving the men the appropriate feedback to support their success at their tasks and overall job. It’s a key requirement of the manager. Every employee must be tracked and managed by this review process.
Monitor
The actual act of paying attention to the key indicators that you are tracking and making certain that this is consistently being done as the employees are watching your follow through as well and if the monitoring is not done, tracking is irrelevant and controlling is impossible.
Control
This is all about making adjustments that are required and revealed from the tracking and monitoring efforts. Once tracked and monitored, then you must do something with the data and use it to sharpen the workforce, share with them the results and support their reaching greater heights, more success. The greater the job satisfaction for all means the greater the success for the business.
Six Words and it is all the guidance you need. Train, plan and review; track, monitor and control.