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How to sustain success in organisations
For many of us, success embodies the attainment of what we desire and have endeavoured towards worthy, predetermined goals such as good health, bountiful wealth, fulfilling relationships, a rewarding career, self-actualisation and harmonious family. For an organisation, success might translate into global recognition, growth sustainability, huge profits and abundant resources including an enviable
talent pool and deep cash reserves. |
But the proof of success is not in the success itself!
Success does not guarantee continuity of success. With the fruits of success comes great responsibility and challenges. There are enough hostile and volatile forces around us to disarm the fragile success in our hands. It would be a shame to have sacrificed so much to achieve success only to lose it so soon after. Hence, achieving success is a challenge, as you then have to maintain and sustain
it.
So how can you protect your organisation from being another infamous casualty of success?
ABC of sustainable success
From my 30-year corporate experience, I have found that sustainable success in organisations may be succinctly depicted by three basic principles: Avoid, Build and Conquer.
A - Avoid success traps
Traps come in all forms and contexts, but Robert Herbold, former COO of Microsoft Corporation and author of bestseller Seduced by Success summarises them as follows:
Trap no. 1: Neglect - sticking to a stale business model;
Trap no. 2: Pride - failing to revamp a stale brand;
Trap no. 3: Boredom - resulting in customers switching to competitors, especially consumer brands with low switching costs;
Trap no. 4: Complexity - ignoring your business processes as they become cumbersome and complicated;
Trap no. 5: Bloat - losing speed and agility in business processes;
Trap no. 6: Mediocrity - under utilising talents and condoning poor performance;
Trap no. 7: Lethargy - lulled into a creature of comfort, casualness and confidence;
Trap no. 8: Timidity - hesitating in tackling thorny inter-functional and inter-office relations; and
Trap no. 9: Confusion - breakdown in dissemination of information.
If the above is too complex for you to remember, I recommend that you ask yourself this reality check question: "What are the ways that I could weaken or kill my own organisation or which a competitor would do today to kill my business tomorrow?"
B - Build your strengths
After recognising the nine traps (the "what"), you need to know "how" to counter them. A powerful counteracting approach is to reinforce yourself, your own organisation. This is akin to saving up for a rainy day or packing your body with muscles for a tough challenge ahead. I will highlight a few key tips.
Products and Processes. Continue to improve. Don't slow down in your quest to do things better and do better things. Be unsatisfied with the status quo and take it to the next level, be it in branding, product innovation, business process or talent development, etc.
People and Potential. Keep things fresh and challenging. Make learning enjoyable. Inject some excitement, for instance assign different roles, or offer temporary role swaps, to the talented. Improve inter-functional and inter-office relations. Confidence in tackling inter-departmental issues boosts morale. After all, people are the movers of a company. When matters are dealt with in a
professional and equitable manner, people feel better and can perform their best.
Empower and rejuvenate your people. Weed out the weak and challenge the heroes. Recognise the brilliant and potential high performers; challenge and engage them. Often, these talents will rise to the challenge and adopt new competencies and skills. This benefits both parties - they gain more experience whilst you gain more valuable and talented employees. However, consistent underachievers must be
addressed through performance review and counselling; if performance cannot be enhanced, then de-selection may be necessary.
Patronage and Positioning. The executive leadership has to take patronage of the organisational drive towards a culture of excellence that sustains success. They have to set the strategic direction and positioning and ensure everyone stays focused.
Partnerships and Promotion. Look externally to see if your organisation can form strategic alliances with previously unlikely parties. Market dynamics have changed. Sometimes company-competitor alliances may be more effective than company-customer alliances. Once this company-competitor alliance is consummated or established, it must be actively promoted to synergise the respective
partners' strength and to do more co-branding.
So brace yourself as turbulent times will surely come! This is the cyclical nature of business.
C - Conquer!
Once you have fortified you own defences, you are more than ready to go out and conquer customers, competitors and countries. It is good to get yourself known, as you are now ready to face the challenges by strengthening your branding and do an aggressive marketing campaign.
Start today using the ABC approach
Creating a sustainable, resilient organisation or nation doesn't happen overnight. It takes strategic focus, political will, alertness, hard work and perseverance, with an understanding of the "traps" of organisational decline and their corresponding remedies. The ABC approach as discussed above will provide you with some practical insights and implementation that can be used as a reference guide
to your organisation's business model. Organisations that recognise, respond and adapt to changes to avoid the success complacency traps are sustainable institutions which will stand the test of time.
The Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) invites companies and professional managers to attend the National Management Conference in Kuala Lumpur on 5 December 2007, featuring Robert Herbold as the keynote speaker and a panel of distinguished industry leaders and corporate chiefs. Contact (603) 2164 5255; fax (603) 2144 9319; e-mail: enquiries@mim.org.my or visit www.mim.org.my.
Dr Wilson Tay, MMIM, MIM-CPT is CEO of MIM, the national management organisation of Malaysia.
