Great news. Acclino has been shortlisted for the Spiders Awards 2018, Irelands premier digital technology awards.
Acclino is in a shortlist of 5 compnaies in the category “Best in Education and eLearning“, sponsored by Zesty.
The winners will be announced on November 29th, 2018 at the RDS Concert Hall.
The advent of technology has developed in such a powerful way that nothing could remain the same. The beginning of the XXI century completely changed the way we perceive work, so much that it’s almost impossible to imagine a workplace without some type of AI. The global market has also undergone radical changes in the past few decades; this has also significantly contributed to the rise of AI and robotics in Lean management implementation.
With the development of the Internet and machine technology, work has changed in such a way that it’s now very hard to keep track with it. Innovations and breakthroughs occur on a daily basis, and every good company should do its best to make good use of this. By implementing AI into the work process, your company can profit in numerous ways. You will be able to:
Over the past several decades, some companies were slow on implementing technology in Lean management, and they’ve all suffered considerably because of it. By failing to do this efficiently, these companies gambled with their future in the market. In today’s world, it is crucial not to make this mistake.
There are numerous benefits of implementing AI and robotics in Lean management of your work process:
The most important thing a company needs is skilled workforce. With the advent of modern technologies, the entire work process has altered – and the need for old-time employees is gone. Nowadays workers need to possess a different mindset and a modern skillset; otherwise, they won’t be able to adjust to the requirements of the modern-age technology.
For example, there will be less and less need for repetitive human work; instead, humans will need to expand their knowledge in terms of machine-control and process management. This doesn’t mean that the importance of human labor will be diminished – just the contrary. The only difference will be in the roles human workforce assumes. Humans will have to learn more technical skills, but there will be a greater need for those who haven’t been able to contribute enough in the past (e.g. people with disabilities).
A company also needs a solid business plan. Without a detailed plan, the implementation process might not go as planned. This is why it’s important to invest enough time into the preparation for the implementation process.
This is one of the most well-known examples of integrating technology into the work process. Since there is no need for employees to be physically present at the place of work, they can complete their tasks using mobile communications, such as phones or laptop/desktop computers.
By being programmed, automated and independent, industrial robots can accomplish their tasks with much more efficiency and accuracy than humans. Industrial robots significantly speed up the work process, which is reflected in a company’s economic impact.
This type of technology is widely used in various industries, and its main advantage is a significant contribution to prediction, classification, and assessment. Thus, a computer system gradually develops while “learning”. As a direct result of this, work performance on a specific task grows exponentially.
Decision management has a goal of automating a company’s decision-making system as much as possible, through the use predictive analytics and similar software solutions. As a result of this, the cost of decision-making within a company drops significantly, whereas the overall efficiency grows.
If you liked this article, please share it with anyone who you think may benefit from it. Subscribe to our blog and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn to get continuous updates on new business insights, as well as tips and tricks on how to improve your business.
Logistics is often viewed simply as the moving of goods from vendors to customers or from manufacturing facilities to warehouses or distributors. In actuality, it’s a lot more than that. Logistics is a process that involves the entire company, and inefficiencies within it can significantly impact the effectiveness of your business. Find out what they are and how to make sure they do not slow your company down.
In business, information is everything. Without relevant information, you won’t be able to do anything. There can be no planning, no insight into the work process, etc. By missing out on just one item, or piece of information, you risk destroying your company in the long run – and this simply cannot happen.
Therefore, the most important thing is to obtain all the relevant information for your business. The best way to do this is through an information management system. There are two ways you can go: custom solution or an existing one. If your company is in good financial standing, and you can afford it, we recommend that you obtain a customized system.
By integrating this information management system into your work process, you will be able to track all of your orders, warehouse inventory, supply chain, delivery, etc. Your entire business will go through a thorough transformation from the bottom up. Information management is the key to your business success.
This is another part of logistics that many businesses somehow overlook. In every part of your company, trained, knowledgeable employees are an essential component of the entire work process. And logistics is no exception to that.
Your employees have to be fully trained for the position, and they need to possess enough knowledge to deal with their daily tasks and challenges. If you have staff members who were trained years ago, they won’t be able to contribute in their full capacity; they have to be trained anew, and learn everything about the new developments in the industry.
SOP or standard operational procedure is the axis of your work process. Just because you have a SOP and your company is working – doesn’t mean that you have the best SOP around.
Oftentimes, a good SOP doesn’t have too many steps. Some of the best SOPs have only a couple of steps, but they are all well thought out and tailored to the needs of the company. Therefore, you have to make sure that your SOP is in touch with the company values and your business requirements. SOP must address all the aspects of the work process, enabling them to work efficiently. Also, remember that a good SOP always includes regular quality control.
KPI, or key performance indicator, is a very important aspect of logistics, and you should give it your utmost attention. In essence, KPI is an objective measurement of your work progress, based on two factors – 1) your business goals and 2) your standard of performance.
Just any a physical measurement instrument, KPI tells you how fast you are going toward your business goals within a given time frame. In order to be effective, KPI must include measurements from all the key aspects of logistics, such as:
The more elements you include into your KPI, the more accurate its results will be.
Supply chain is not some addition to your business. It is not an optional part of your business – it is your business. Think of supply chain as the bloodline of your company. If you block it, or don’t pay enough attention to it, your business will wither and die.
In order to make it as effective as possible, think of your supply chain as a standalone business within your company. It still belongs to your company, it works along with it – but it is also independent. Your supply chain is your connection to the market; without it, you are completely lost. The better your strategy for your supply chain is, the better your commercial results will be.
Be sure to have a supply chain with a good network design and solid supplier performance – both are equally important for its success. As mentioned earlier, your supply chain resembles a bloodline – in that sense, its network design is the system of veins and arteries and the supplier performance is a pulse.
If you don’t know where you are going, you won’t get anywhere. This is where the importance of strategic planning lies. Your business, as a whole, needs strategic planning in order to survive, but so does every aspect of your business – including logistics. You need to develop a solid strategy for your warehouse, transportation, ordering, suppliers, vendors, etc.
Don’t leave anything to chance – each section of the work process has to be well thought out. Although you run your business on a day-to-day basis, you cannot allow yourself to plan on a day-to-day basis. Strategic planning requires seeing the “big picture” and thinking long-term.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
The most important aspect of any business is gradual growth. Status quo is never beneficial for your company, because it will eventually slow you down and affect your efficiency. Once that happens, you will be past the point of no return. This is why it is essential that you keep growing and maximizing your potential.
One of the essential aspects of your business should be focusing on data and analytics. Sadly, many companies simply ignore this; yet, it is exactly what makes all the difference. Let us see how you can improve your business and increase your efficiency through data and analytics.
By analyzing the data obtained from your customers, you will be able to learn more about them and direct the focus of your business to those aspects that really matter. If you have a product, or a service, the key is to present that to your customers in a way that best suits their needs and preferences – and get them to do business with you.
However, if you don’t know enough about your customers, you won’t be able to come up with the most effective business strategy. As a direct result of this, you will spend way too much time on the implementation of a business strategy that may not be nearly as effective, thus losing a lot of financial resources.
When you have enough relevant data, you can create the perfect customer profile; in turn, this will enable you to tailor to your customers’ needs in the best way possible. Your products and services will become a lot better, your marketing will become much more effective, and your overall productivity will increase exponentially.
Many companies lose a lot of time on the recruitment process, and one of the reasons for this is because they don’t make the best use of data and analytics. Before advertising a job position within your company, or thinking about expanding the workforce, you have to know exactly what you want to achieve – and how.
This is why it is important to conduct a thorough analysis of your entire company from the bottom up, paying close attention to every aspect of the working process. By analyzing the work process as a whole, you will be able to see which parts of it need some improvement. Your business data will show you exactly what you need: it could be a new position, or a rethinking of a work process, etc.
But there is really no point of employing more people unless you know what you are looking for. And the best way to achieve this is through analyzing your data. Therefore, be sure to conduct an analysis of your monthly, quarterly and yearly productivity. Once you do this, the actual recruitment process will improve, and you will get the right people on board.
There are instances when a company leader is faced with a hard decision and when making the right move becomes extremely frustrating. In times such as these, some managers listen to their “gut feeling” and reach a decision without a clear idea of why they did it.
Unfortunately, this often leads to terrible consequences, as the whole company suffers in every way possible. This is why it is important to consult your data when faced with hard choices and tough challenges. Making an accurate prediction is a delicate practice, which is why you need to lower the risk as much as possible.
By analyzing your past business activity, and comparing your business strategies, goals and results, you will be able to come up with the most viable solution and make the best decision possible. The more business data you consult and the more effort you put into your analysis, the better your final decision will be.
In today’s world, companies are coming and going faster than ever before. The competition is fierce, and there are simply no guarantees. Therefore, if you want to stand out from the crowd and gain the upper hand, you need to put your data to good use.
It is crucial that you know this one thing – every successful company out there is analyzing its data right now. Why should you be any different? The biggest, strongest companies of today are all data-driven, and you are well advised to adopt this as your primary working principle. Make sure that you are analyzing your own data, as well as your competitors’.
There is simply no way to dominate an industry, or make a major impact, unless you know where you and your competitors are. You will learn where your competitors got things right, but also where they underperformed – which will enable you to come up with more effective strategies.
If you liked this article, please share it with anyone who you think may benefit from it. Subscribe to our blog and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn to get continuous updates on new business insights, as well as tips and tricks on how to improve your business.
When it comes to Lean and healthcare, you really shouldn’t view it as just another program, or a business section that needs to be introduced. In fact, Lean is a complete transformation of a facility from the bottom up. You should look at it as a brand-new business culture that will help your company achieve groundbreaking results.
Once you implement Lean into your work community, you will see changes in the atmosphere, employee attitude, work efficiency, work habits and, of course – overall productivity. Lean is not something you do once and then forget about; it is an ongoing transformation of your work environment and everyone involved in it.
If Lean can be summed up in a single phrase, that it would probably be – gradual improvement. That’s what Lean really comes down to: it is a gradual improvement of a company, in every possible way. Furthermore, it creates a whole new set of professional values your employees can adhere to.
Lean unifies the whole work process around a single purpose, giving both the employees and patients a sense of working on a common goal. In turn, this results in outstanding results and numerous physical and psychological benefits.
Let us break down all the principles of implementing Lean management into your healthcare company. You will see all the ways in which your health care company can be transformed if you opt for it.
Employees are given tasks which help increase their overall work engagement and productivity. They are allowed to come up with new ideas for improving their engagement, and discuss them with their colleagues. Communication among workers is smoother, discussions are more constructive and goal-oriented, and each problem is worked on until a solution is reached. Every new idea is welcomed, and every possible approach to the work process is given enough thought.
This practice has proved to be highly effective, as employees who speak to each other openly are more engaged and productive. The core value of this practice lies in its team-building aspects, as effective collaboration of the entire medical team can significantly reinforce all aspects of the work process.
The entire work process is rethought and redesigned. The most important feature of the Lean practice is the creation of standardized protocols; these are designed in such a way that they cut all unnecessary aspects of the work procedure and reinforce its integral parts. Staff members are focused on problem-solving as one of the major contributing factors to the overall quality of the workflow.
Oftentimes, this practice turns entire medical facilities upside down, rearranging the work process in the best possible way. The biggest asset of this practice is the strengthening on the whole work environment, where every staff member knows exactly what to do and how to do it.
The skillset of the staff members is their most important asset. Without skilled, knowledgeable workers, the whole medical facility can be compromised, and this could even lead to fatal consequences.
Lean methodology puts extra focus on the skillset of the workforce, making sure that every team member is absolutely equipped (professionally, physically and psychologically) for performing their given tasks. The work process can further be improved through the use of Lean consultants and facilitators, who apply the best practices for workplace optimization.
Staff members are treated as equal employees (each with their own skillset) and the entire work process is set to respond to an individual’s set of skills and responsibilities. As a result of this, delays are minimized, work volume is increased and turnover time is cut down significantly.
Sometimes, when a situation requires it, the work process has to be adjusted to the new “environment”. In these situations, work flexibility is extremely important. Working around an emergency, and coming up with the most effective strategy is key for all medical facilities.
Lean implementation helps medical facilities improve their work flexibility and optimize their employees for all case scenarios. This results in better overall efficiency and increased productivity.
If a healthcare company or a medical facility works like clockwork, it will definitely show in their reputation among the clients and patients. Lean management helps healthcare companies reinforce their image among clients through consistent quality of services provided. Sadly, this is something that many companies choose to ignore.
With too many drops in the quality of service, a company jeopardizes its future in the market. Through Lean management, every part of the company will come together, turning the entire company into a healthy organism. When a company works perfectly, the service recipients will be absolutely satisfied – and they will spread the word around.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
Planning future actions is an integral part of any successful business, but this is oftentimes easier said than done. Even some of the most successful companies in the world struggle with executing their business strategy and setting long-term goals.
Here are some of the things you should do in order to maximize your potential for work execution.
Remember, the most important asset of any successful business is continual growth. In the long run, a business will be measured by its determination to grow and develop on a continuous basis. The pressure is hard, and the challenges are numerous – but it is essential that you keep growing as a company. Otherwise, everything will collapse like a house of cards.
Unfortunately, there are so many companies that forget (or deliberately ignore) how crucial long-term planning is. If long-term goals are not set, and if there is no long-term strategy, your executive powers will diminish and your business potential will dwindle. Therefore, the most important asset of your company is – determination to set and achieve long-term goals.
If continual growth is to be achieved, business leaders must come up with effective practices. In today’s world, there are so many business leaders who don’t put enough thought into developing their business strategy. Others ignore the importance of small tasks and day-to-day work, focusing solely on what awaits them ten years from now.
Unfortunately, this is not a good approach. And the reason is simple: all long-term success depends on completing those tedious, minute tasks during every single workday. That is the key element: there are no small tasks and secondary work activities. It all must work itself into your company’s “big picture”.
You probably know the saying “the chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. Well, the same principle can be applied to business: “your company is only as strong as the attention you give to even the smallest of tasks”. Once you realize this fairly simple principle, and start incorporating it into your work culture, you will witness massive changes in your productivity and business results.
It is practically impossible to maintain business success without proper communication in the workplace. Every business leader must be aware of the following: unprocessed information is useless. And one of the ways in which information is processed is through good communication in the workplace.
All the business elements that come into play must be given solid information to work with. Every company has multiple sectors, and each of those sectors is further divided into smaller work environments. The lack of communication, or even poor communication – will result in unsatisfactory business results. When we say “communication”, there are two main aspects: communication of ideas and communication of orders. One cannot go without the other.
Communication of ideas focuses on presenting the employees with the company’s vision and general ideas: brand identity, work culture, etc. Every employee has to be aware of this at all times. Communication of orders revolves around day-to-day activities that are essential to the long-term success of the company. Orders stem directly from ideas, but they are more on the practical side of things. It’s like hardware and software on a computer – both are equally important.
To put it simply, when it comes to communication in the workplace – no stone can be left unturned. Everyone, from the CEO to the last employee in the chain must be connected into a single network of work information that’s spread across the company.
Every company is based on a single story: stories are what drives us, and we absolutely depend on them. Make sure that your company story is a positive one, and tell it to all of your employees, top to bottom. This will enable you to execute your vision effortlessly.
Discipline is essential if you want to achieve your business goals. If there isn’t enough discipline in your work process, you will experience numerous problems along the way. It is important that you have a work calendar and adhere to it throughout the work week.
Oftentimes, you might find it hard to stay on schedule and not miss an important point – but this is when it’s absolutely necessary that you do it. Remember this: your priorities don’t mean a thing unless you back them up with your work discipline. Discipline is an integral part of the execution process in any business.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
Lean is a customer-centric philosophy of continuous improvement to maximize value and reduce waste. Doing that, it improves the quality of services and products, subsequently benefiting the customer.
The focus of Lean is to minimize the expenses, workforce, and excessive activities in order to increase the efficiency and eliminate the costs. Therefore, the main idea of Lean is optimising the value-creating processes of the customers to finish the whole operation smoothly.
Lean provides an organisation with many advantages since the correct application of the Lean principles will achieve considerable benefits. The direct benefits are improving quality, smoother operation, more efficient business processes, providing solutions to cut down errors, reducing cycle times, managing process complexity, increasing team productivity and morale, reducing operating costs, reducing lead-time, and many more. All these benefits are possible if Lean is incorporated into your business.
Service organisations are very different from a manufacturing company; however, they still have many wasteful processes that could be minimized or completely removed. Therefore, the philosophy of Lean in a service environment remains identical – to realize maximum performance and productivity with minimum resources, besides being more difficult to locate immaterial wastes.
The service companies are under the pressure to provide quicker response times, exceptional customer service, and support for the customers. Lean targets wastes and in that way helps to optimise the service processes. Either Lean will remove the wastes entirely or it will move them to a more efficient state.
Delivering quality healthcare efficiently is challenging. Healthcare processes have a large avoidable waste component, so Lean is the perfect quality improvement approach. It improves health and the quality of care for patients while saving resources and time. Minimizing waste is not the crucial goal but a means to improve services to the patient. Putting the patient in the first place requires a thinking workforce.
Some benefits of Lean healthcare are:
Applying Lean in healthcare has resulted in improving patient satisfaction, decreasing readmission rates, and decreased the length of stay. The entire workforce has become motivated and they understand that they are identifying and providing value to their patients.
The clients get better service by removing waste from legal processes and the work is done faster. In addition, the department stays on the budget since there are fewer costs associated.
This includes reviewing the responsibilities of the firm and employees, making sure, if the right people are performing the right tasks. This allows the lawyers to concentrate on the higher complexity jobs.
The amount of work on cases can be disproportionate to the value of the case and that troubles the legal system. One of the solutions of Lean is to improve the communication between lawyers and clients, so the lawyers can understand what exactly their clients want and offer the best given their budget. Also, this means increasing the cooperation with the opposite client.
Lean encourages new ideas from all employees that can result in excellent improvement. It makes the work environment more relaxed, resulting in new and better strategies.
One of the most important benefits of developing a process map is better resource management. It identifies duplicate and wasted effort. It establishes boundaries for a project, preventing the project to spin out into areas that are not part of the plan. Also, it makes sure whether the right level of legal resource is used at every phase. This requires every employee to develop a well-defined picture of the issue and the procedures to address it, keeping everyone involved on the same page.
Lean thinking provides an operating methodology to businesses as banks, investment and insurance companies to maintain process excellence and constantly improve results. It provides with cost-effective solutions and reduces the risks during an economic dip. So, Lean helps transform accounting and finance into high-performing and customer-focused organizations, focusing on delivering value.
It prevents you from performing entire processes that do not produce value but make you waste time improving them.
Lean is efficient at the identification and elimination of extra processing and overproduction, unnecessary transportation, rework, waiting time, and other non-valued added activities. By mapping the process and finding these tasks, improvement teams can address the waste and considerably improve process performance.
The Lean approach to quality views problems as opportunities to advance process capability and improve customer value. It strives to resolve the problems by addressing the source of their origin, as soon as they happen. Once their source is identified, the team modifies the process to avoid the problem from reappearing. This is made by depersonalizing process improvement. The tactic is not to blame the people, but the process. One approach that works well is to refer to the process as the “systems and processes”. People are never reluctant to identify problems with the inanimate systems.
Lean is used widely in the service sector for maximizing value and improving the efficiency of the business. With applying Lean, the business gets more motivated employees, increased customer value. It helps the businesses to do their job better with a more effective strategy, resulting in better, faster, and more effective service to external and internal customers. From the better management of process complexity to improved team morale, it is clear that the benefits of Lean go far beyond the work itself.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content, and be sure to check out or podcasts and webinars, too. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
Everything you need to know to embark on your journey towards excellence
Wednesday, 06 June 2018, at 11:00 AM
What you’ll learn in this webinar…
About the host, Damian Murphy
Damian is the founder and principal trainer at Acclino, an online learning platform. With 30 years of experience in the process transformation space, Damian and his team specialize in distiling the most valuable aspects of Lean, Six Sigma, and Project Management, and teaching them in a simple and useful manner through the Acclino Framework.
In order to make the most of what Lean has to offer, you should start from your office environment as the core of your work process. Once you effectively implement Lean into your offices, everything will fall into place, and you will notice a significant rise in your productivity.
The simplest explanation would be that Lean is there to increase the work process speed and reduce waste as much as possible. By helping accomplish this, it will add value to every task performed and, ultimately, will increase the productivity of the company as a whole.
The work process speed is increased by cutting away everything that slows it down, such as unwanted or unnecessary tasks. Waste reduction is achieved through elimination of everything that is considered waste in an office environment:
First of all, Lean will help you easily identify all the problem areas in your work surroundings. You will spend significantly less time on figuring out what to do, and you will have a clearer understanding of your potential business strategy.
Furthermore, you will increase your efficiency and save a lot of financial resources along the way. Once your office environment becomes “Lean-friendly”, all of your staff members will know exactly what they need to do, and their targets will be met much more effectively. By doing away with everything that is redundant, you will be able to focus on the essential aspects of your work process; in turn, this will cut costs and contribute to your financial wellbeing.
Also, implementing Lean into your office areas will simplify the entire work process for your company. You will have a much clearer picture of the priorities, while the paperwork gets cut down to the bare minimum. Lean principles are excellent when it comes to prioritizing work tasks within a given process. You will find the most logical way in which to perform a certain task and, as a direct result of this, the whole work process will flourish.
Once Lean practices are fully integrated into your work process, the morale of your employees will become stronger. They will know exactly what they are doing, and the entire working atmosphere will be much better.
Business meetings have to be as short and effective as possible. A good practice would be to set a strict time for meetings within each working area (department, section, etc.) and to maintain the meeting schedule on a continuous basis.
Enough time should pass between two meetings, in order to improve their effectiveness. Each meeting should have only a couple of topics on the agenda, or only one topic – the most important one. During the meeting, only relevant questions should be asked.
This is a Lean principle for structuring the work process through strict categories and sub-categories for better work optimization.
Organizing workshops, seminars, lectures and educational classes for all staff members, making sure they are all fully engaged and attentive.
This way, employees will be highly informed on the new developments within their industry, and they will be more capable of focusing on their daily tasks in the most productive way possible.
By being cross-trained for multiple positions, employees can:
These are just some of the Lean principles for an office environment, but even small changes can bring considerable improvements to any office environment.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
If you are a regular reader of online magazines such as Entrepreneur and Inc.com, you are not a stranger to articles about a multitude of leaders failing, often repeatedly, before succeeding. Business magnates such as Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, and many others are examples of those who managed to overcome their failures; however, there are a lot more of those who never do. Being a leader isn’t easy and it isn’t for everyone. Read our 10 main reasons for why leaders fail to find out whether you and your company are in trouble.
In order for a company to function properly and succeed, it needs to work towards accomplishing specific and realistic goals. Then the leader and his team know what exactly they are aiming for, it is possible to determine what actions need to be taken in order to reach the goal.
On the contrary, when there are no definite goals or a specific vision to reach for, everything that a company does becomes disorganized and progress becomes difficult or impossible to measure. A leader is responsible for setting these goals and vision and guiding the team towards accomplishing them.
There is a difference between a boss and a leader. The former gives orders, treats people as disposable assets, and focuses on getting things done, while the latter gives directions, views their employees as equals, and cares about motivating and empowering their employees.
An effective way of motivating employees is leading by example. That can be done by, for instance, knowing how to do tasks themselves or at least have an understanding of how they need to be done, working alongside the team, and personally displaying the qualities and skills that are expected to form the team. That will ensure that the team isn’t simply following the orders, but the leader and will be intrinsically motivated to do the highest quality work.
While there are leaders who tend to only give orders to the team without doing much of anything themselves, there are also those who fall into the other extreme – not delegating enough or not doing it efficiently. The ability to delegate is extremely important if the company is willing to scale and expand.
The leader of the company can only take on but so much work and if they are unable or unwilling to delegate they are impeding the company from being able to grow and take on more work. Inefficient distribution of tasks can also lead to workers either not having enough work or having too much of it, neither one of which is beneficial for any business.
The only constant that exists is that everything constantly changes. In order for a company to excel and become successful, continuous education, training, and adapting is paramount. By not being open to change and innovation, the leader risks making the company old-fashioned and can fail to deliver the best possible services to the customer.
Startups are being created daily and competition never ceases. If a leader fails to continuously evolve, the company’s customers may eventually choose to switch to a different business that is providing more modern services and more effective results.
There are plenty leaders who try to be nice and politically correct with everyone, especially in the early stages of business when everything is very uncertain and unstable. The truth is – that not everyone will like you. That’s an absolutely normal and natural part of being human. By focusing excessively on trying to please everyone, leaders risk burning too much time and effort on unnecessary engagements, may lose focus, and act in disagreement with the company vision and values.
Instead, it’s more productive and effective to focus all efforts on those who hold the same values and viewpoints and actually support the company and what it’s doing. This will not only help to cater the correct audience in the best way possible, but will also keep the business and the team on track.
A good and intelligent leader knows that they don’t know it all and don’t have all the answers. They also are confident enough to admit that to their team and ask for advice or guidance if necessary even from those who are lower in rank.
Sadly, not every leader thinks this way; and many choose to talk when, in actuality, they should listen. Such approach indicates that the leader is self-absorbed and tries to flaunt their own ego rather that see what is best for everyone in each given situation. This is a recipe for certain failure because it can not only lead to wrong decisions being taken, but also drastically demotivate the team.
While this may seem counterintuitive, criticism is actually crucial for growth and transformation. It is inevitable that employees are going to make mistakes or perform tasks or processes in the most efficient way. Feedback and criticism are essential to identify inefficiencies and guide the team members to identify the ways in which they can improve.
The key word here is – constructive. Not every criticism is the same and it needs to be presented in a constructive way in order to yield a positive result. In certain scenarios the leader and the team may benefit from a training in intrapersonal skills in order to learn how to give constructive criticism in a way that motivates and empowers others.
One of the most popular incentives to encourage employees to excel, is a financial one, when, in fact money is not the only thing that makes people tick. A 2017 study has discovered that, more than anything, workers need recognition and validation that the work that they are doing on a daily basis matters.
In order to build a successful, progress-oriented team, leaders need to acknowledge that they work with people and, in order to stay intrinsically motivated, they need to know that what they are doing is noticed, recognized, and has purpose.
In order for goals to be met and tasks to be executed optimally, they need to be understood correctly. A leader needs to know how to communicate with their team clearly and efficiently or they may end up needing to micromanage everything or cause the team to deliver inadequate work.
Last but not least, a leader must not forget that despite everything that they are trying accomplish they are also human. In order to stay continuously motivated and push forward, every leader needs to take care of their physical and mental health.
By skimping on sleep, not nourishing and hydrating themselves properly, not having an adequate social life, time for hobbies, and enough downtime, a leader risks to develop health issues, depression, succumb to stress, and even burn out, none of which are beneficial for their company.
Now, it’s your turn. Are you a leader or an employee? Are any of these mistakes hindering the progress of your organization? How? Feel free to let us know in the comment section below.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it around. Subscribe to our mailing list to get continuous updates on business insights like this. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for even more content. We want to empower you with the knowledge you need to excel and succeed, and would love to see you as a part of our community.
