instructor Hood's Key Ideas from Pinnacle
by Steve Preda, Gregory Cleary

“People who score six to ten on culture and one to five on productivity are your ‘campers.’ They are likable and fun, but they tend to fall behind in their work. Campers are great people to share a beer and a story with around the campfire but don’t count on them to raise tents or cook dinner.”

Those who score less than five on both measures are both “unkind and unproductive.” They undermine your company, so get rid of them.

“Paint a compelling reason and future for your organization that is worth striving for. Together with your leadership team, figure out how you will get there and sell everyone on that plan, so that all the human energy of your business is channeled toward achieving your organization’s Vision.”

After a business delineates its vision, it must define its strategy to achieve its goals. Senior leaders must align vision and strategy and create a striking rationale for the company’s existence, a strong objective that impels the workforce to strive to achieve it.

“McDonald’s Hamburger University [is] not about cooking hamburgers; it’s about running a business where 15-year-olds work alongside 50-year-olds and where a restaurant can turn a predictable profit even when staff turns over three times a year.”

The less senior management involve themselves in daily operations, the more time they have to lead. The people who report to them typically have less experience and thus need to follow playbooks.

“The idea of weekly metrics is to keep your team on track with achieving results in real time. Accountants tend to be skeptical of this approach because they are used to measuring performance retrospectively, when all the information is in for the month or the quarter.”

Analyze your financial targets and break them into weekly parameters for different roles and employees. This can include creating a scoreboard for senior executives and departments. Construct a game out of reaching your targeted metrics, and encourage your employees to win every week and every quarter.

“The Japanese car brands were little known and little trusted at the time, and the manufacturers had to offer a substantial price advantage for the Honda Accord and the Datsun Violet to be competitive with the Ford Pinto and the Chevrolet Vega.”

If your offering benefits your customers, talk to your buyers and explain your increase in fees. If you need additional, but aligned, products to sell, consider forming partnerships with others. Examine increasing your profits by cutting overhead, perhaps through reducing the size of your office or moving your firm away from an expensive urban area.