3 Ways To Unlock The Hidden Potential In Your Business

Is Your Company Growing Slower Than You Would Like?

Why is that? Has your strategic plan stalled out, or your revenue plateaued? Perhaps your customer base isn’t growing? Or maybe you are just not getting the high employee engagement that you need to be successful?

If you have faced any of these challenges, then you have probably tried many of the traditional ways to overcome these hurdles.

Maybe you have tried things like…

• Tweaking your pricing
• Improving your processes
• Rebranding your business
• Hiring new people
• Changing your marketing methods
• Upgrading your technology
• Expanding your product line

If you have done any or all of these things, then you are doing what almost every other successful company has done to try and grow. And that’s all good, but focusing on those things will only take you so far.

That’s why I’m offering you a radically different solution to your problem.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that some of the best companies in the country have been using for years to become elite in their industries.

It’s what companies like Google, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, Chick-Fil-A and many other industry leaders have leveraged to give themselves an advantage over their competition.

But I don’t think it’s fair that only the “big guys” know about it!

That’s why I’m on a mission to help small businesses learn this and other valuable tools to help them thrive.

However, don’t think what I’m going to share with you only works for big companies with mega budgets.

This secret will help you regardless of your company’s size or budget.

This will work whether you are a…

• Startup with a small staff
• A growing company that’s adding more employees
• An established seasoned business with 100 employees or more

What I’m going to share with you could dramatically improve your company.

So, what is it that could take you, your team and entire company to the next level?

It’s all about unlocking a hidden potential that’s already in your organization, right now.

You don’t have to buy any fancy software or invest in new technology or add more products to your lineup or even hire more people. If you can learn to unlock this hidden potential, you could enjoy a more thriving, enjoyable work life, crush your department or organizational goals and even witness a major impact on your bottom line.

Where is this potential hiding right now?

Well, it’s actually hidden in the employees you have right now. That’s because…

…and if you can unlock their potential your company will go to the next level.

In this post, I’m going to explain how some of the best companies in the world leverage this secret weapon to maximize employee engagement and the three steps you can take to unlock it.

Let me explain…

Lippert Components

I once heard a story about Lippert Components, a manufacturing company that was experiencing great success. For 10 years, they focused on growing their business using some of the traditional methods you may have read about or learned in business school. These methods may include improving products, pricing, processes, marketing, systems or growing through mergers and acquisitions.

These are all things that high-performing organizations have learned to do to become very successful. I call this approach being Product Smart™. Product Smart companies are very good at their craft and have mastered much of the business aspects of their company. Lippert had become Product Smart and after 10 years, they had grown from $100 million in revenue to $800 million.

However, they knew that in order to become elite they needed to do something different.

Here’s what they did…

They figured out the business secret that many of the Fortune 100 companies had learned. They realized that, if they wanted to truly rise above the competition and reach the peak, they had to maximize the potential that was lying dormant in their people. This is what I call becoming a People Smart Company™.

By focusing on strategies that strengthened their people and unearthed their hidden potential, Lippert went from $800 million to a whopping $2.4 billion in revenue, in just 6 years. They learned to unlock the hidden potential that had been inside of their people the whole time and went from just a Product Smart Company to a People Smart Company.

Doing things well on the “Product” side of your business is an important step to becoming a great company. But…

If you want your organization to maximize its potential, it’s essential that you spend time focusing on your people and become a People Smart Company.

In the last few years, how often have you spent time, money and effort upgrading your marketing, products, website, systems, technology, processes or anything else related to the business side of your company?

Now contrast that against the level of focus you have given to upgrading your people. Is there a noticeable difference?

If so, then keep reading and I’ll show you how to unlock the hidden potential in your people and maximize employee engagement so your company can go to the next level.

3 Steps To Unlock The Full Potential In Your People and Maximize Employee Engagement

Step 1: Create a Greenhouse Effect™

This step is all about creating the ideal corporate culture for your people to thrive. When we work with clients to help them create this culture, we introduce something we call the Greenhouse Effect.

This summer, I went to a ranch in Northern California and on the property they had a small greenhouse where they grew various plants. The greenhouse was important, especially in an area like that, because the weather fluctuated erratically. It could be hot and dry one day and cold and wet the next.

You see, a greenhouse is simply a structure that allows you to control the elements inside and create the ideal environment for the plants to thrive. Even in harsh cold weather, you could grow tropical fruit as long as you keep the temperature, humidity, light, soil and water in the right proportions. However, if you were to leave the door to the greenhouse open and let in cold, dry air you could ruin the environment and stunt the growth and limit the fruit of your plants.

Your company culture is just like this. If you don’t create the right environment for your people to thrive, employee engagement will suffer and they will never reach their peak.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

• Do you have a greenhouse in your company that sets your people up for success or do you leave upgrading your people to chance?
• Who are the gatekeepers helping you keep an eye on the door?

Step 2: Decide On Your Culture Points™

In Step 1 I talked about how the right corporate culture is critical to unlocking the hidden potential in your people. However, creating this environment is not something you start from scratch because you already have one functioning right now.  The question is, is it the right culture?

How do you create the right corporate culture? Like a greenhouse, a great culture is all about keeping the right elements in and keeping the wrong ones out.  If we don’t proactively monitor what our culture is made up of, it will be created by chance and become an amalgamation of the people in it.

Therefore, in order to create the ideal culture, it’s important to take the second step and decide what you want in your environment and what you want out.  I call this determining your Culture Points. A lot goes into this, but when we work with companies we start by suggesting you add things that foster strong internal relationships, a sense of purpose and consistent growth oriented feedback.

Also, like plants in a greenhouse that need light, water, and fertilizer to thrive, everyone has specific needs to grow and become their best.  If you can discover those needs and create a culture that does a good job meeting them, you will be well on your way to unlocking the greatness that’s in your people.

If you would like an extended list of recommendations we give clients, you can download the nine page People Smart Activation Guide™ for FREE by clicking here.  In this guide we’ll give you an overview of all three People Smart steps and over 20 different specific recommendations to help you create a People Smart Culture in your company.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

• How would you describe your current culture?
• What do you want your culture to look like?
• What do you want to keep out of your culture?
• Who currently shapes your culture, for the good or bad?

Step 3: Make Your People Smart Communication Plan™

Once you have committed to having a corporate culture focused on developing great people and you’ve identified your Culture Points, you need to decide how to communicate that vision to your people.

This last step is where many leaders drop the ball because…

A plan is only as effective as it’s understood and implemented. Click To Tweet

You see, it usually takes people 8 times of hearing something for it to really sink in. Therefore, as a leader, it’s vital that you clearly and regularly communicate it to your people. Having a vision meeting once a year, listing things in your employee handbook or just posting a sign in the break room won’t cut it.

The Ritz Carlton Model

Intentionally communicating what the company culture should reflect is one of the secrets used by one of the most iconic hotel brands on the planet, the Ritz Carlton. Horst Schulze, the co-founder of the luxury hotel group which is known for its consistent high-touch customer service culture, shared a story about how they ensure their culture is replicated in over 100 properties and 30 countries around the globe.

In an interview, he explained how his employees have a quick meeting every day before their shift, where they discuss one aspect of their cultural values. Over time their ideal culture was so ingrained in their people that they began to embody it.

Did these employees come in knowing how to deliver Ritz Carlton-level service? Probably not, but once they came into the culture and it was communicated over and over, they became the culture and the potential that was inside of them to provide that level of service was unlocked.

What will your People Smart Communication Plan look like?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

• How often do you currently communicate your vision of an ideal corporate culture?
• Do you personally model it to your people?
• What are some ways you could consistently communicate the culture you want to see?

A People Smart Company In Action

We recently had the pleasure of helping a company upgrade their corporate culture and become People Smart by going through one of our programs.

They originally called us because they had plateaued in their growth and had to hire more people, but a significant rift had opened up between the new hires and the “old guard”. Their office environment had become toxic, their teams were dysfunctional, productivity was plummeting, and they were on the brink of having to make some costly personnel changes.

After only a few weeks of adding the right elements into their culture and focusing on their people the situation turned around. The office environment completely changed!

It was “a joy to come to work,” one of the employees reported.

And what’s more, employee engagement significantly improved and productivity skyrocketed.

When speaking with the owner several months after our program ended, she told me their firm ended up “having their best year ever”.

Conclusion

If you want to rise to the next level, it’s critical that you unlock the hidden potential that’s in your people right now and maximize employee engagement.

To do this, you must create a Greenhouse Effect in your company. This is accomplished by…

1. Intentionally establishing the right corporate culture for your organization.
2. Decide what elements you want to keep in and which ones you want out.
3. Create a plan to communicate that vision on a regular basis so it becomes ingrained in everyone in the organization.

If you do these three things, you will set yourself up to unlock the greatness in your people and maximize employee engagement and like Lippert Components and the Ritz Carlton, become elite in your industry.  And most of all remember…

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I hope you enjoyed the article.  If so, join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter and let me know what you thought.

Thanks,

Charles

PS. If you want to dive deeper into creating a People Smart Culture in your company, you can download the FREE 9 page People Smart Activation Guide™ by clicking here.  In this guide I’ll give you an overview of the three steps listed above.  Plus, 12 application questions and over 20 specific recommendations we provide our clients when we help them strengthen their culture and maximize their people.

I’m Charles Kown. I love helping leaders accomplish their goals, become their best, and create thriving, productive teams.