I think one of the crucial elements of a successful business is ACCOUNTABILITY.
You can apply it to yourself, your team, and even your business-critical suppliers.
If you make sure that all the stakeholders in your business are accountable then you will see a difference in your business, I’m sure of it.
The leader
The best leaders make themselves accountable and the worst leaders don’t.
When you run your own business there is no one to tell you what to do or check that you’re doing what you should. I’ve seen many businesses not achieve their goals because they allow themselves to avoid hard jobs. They put these tasks on the ‘too hard pile’ and they never get done.
It’s so easy to neglect the crucial jobs when you’re the boss and there’s no one to nag you
So what’s the answer?
If you’re disciplined then you can set up systems to measure a business’s performance against its critical success factors.
You can know if the reason you’re not achieving your goals is that you’re not doing what you decided to do or because those things don’t work.
If you’re not so disciplined or you struggle with having too much to do then you would benefit from some type of mentor. Either someone to catch up with regularly and keep you on track, or maybe an FD type person who can set up a formal process, like our VIP club.
The team
Businesses like Amazon get criticised for the way that they treat their team. We hear rumours of their time being controlled by the minute by a tablet that monitors their every move.
Now, you might think that this is going too far but there’s no denying that they have transformed the retail marketplace. Their service is second to none and would have been deemed impossible 20 years ago.
The best businesses set targets and measure the performance of their team members.
There’s no doubt that setting goals and measuring performance against these goals bring about improvements to the team productivity and or service levels. So a process of target setting and measurement for all staff will bring about an improvement to your business.
Suppliers
Certain suppliers are crucial to the development of your business and these too should be given targets – either internally or agreed with them – about what you expect from them.
The best example here is a business providing marketing and business development services. Targets that could be set here would be things like website visits or leads generated. You can calculate return on investment.
The best way would be to discuss expectations with such suppliers and agree between you what is good and what is unacceptable. You can build these metrics into your management information pack and act if things need to improve.
If you would like a free meeting to discuss your business and see how to improve your accountability, and inevitably, your business, then please get in touch.
