With over thirty years’ experience in enhancing business performance, at Ninety Days we have witnessed a profound but common trend: businesses are more inclined to participate rather than truly compete in their markets. The pressing question is – how do we craft an organisation that is able to compete in the marketplaces it serves?
Let’s go deeper.
The Strategy Conundrum
The cornerstone of competitiveness is often believed to rest on the leadership team’s strategic prowess. However, a Kaplan and Norton study, in the Harvard Business Review, found that 85% of executive teams spend less than an hour per month discussing strategy. Alarmingly, half don’t dedicate any time at all. This disconnect between strategy formulation and execution leads to a staggering statistic: only 56% of strategic initiatives are successful.
In a rapidly evolving global market where information flows freely, the true competitive differentiator therefore isn’t the strategic insight the leadership team might bring but rather whether they can get the organisation to execute effectively. The message is clear—the effective execution of even a mediocre strategy trumps the poor execution of a stellar one.
Employee Involvement
The challenge with traditional strategic planning is its failure to be effectively communicated and therefore executed efficiently across an entire organisation – and so, in our experience there is a strong argument for the inclusion of all employees in the strategy-making process.
Strategies often fail because they are not embraced or understood across the entire organisation. By involving employees at every level, businesses can ensure that strategies are executed with a deeper understanding, belief, and commitment.
The Ownership Mentality
Imagine you have to choose between two identical companies to invest in: Company A, where employees think, feel and act as just that, employees; and Company B, where every individual thinks, feel and acts like they’re the owner. The choice seems obvious, doesn’t it? Company B, with its owner-minded workforce, is not just a more attractive investment but also produces better place to work.
Companies with highly engaged employees are 21% more profitable than those with low engagement levels Gallup
Studies show that businesses run with an “ownership mentality” grow faster, are more profitable, and boast higher levels of staff engagement.
The Game of Business
Business, in essence, is akin to a serious game. It has rules, a scoring system, a playing field, competitors, and a clear objective—to WIN! Yet, many employees operate without understanding the rules or how their actions influence the score, i.e., the company’s financial results.
Here’s a challenge for you: ask your colleagues if they understand how your business makes money. The likely gap in knowledge is where the opportunity lies.
Let’s explain this through a tennis analogy, a narrative that is particularly illustrative.
Picture this: you’re on a tennis court, racquet in hand. Some of you play regularly, others are somewhat familiar with the game, and a few more may not know much beyond the Pimm’s or strawberries and cream seen during Wimbledon. Initially, we’re just hitting the ball back and forth but soon, the inherent human drive to compete kicks in, and we agree to play a game.
To start the game, we first need to understand the rules—the relevance of the lines, the net, and the sequence of play. It mirrors how a business must understand the market’s boundaries and regulations.
Next, we devise a scoring system, akin to setting financial targets and performance metrics. Then, we define what ‘winning’ means—what does it take to win a set, the match, to achieve our financial targets, customer and market objectives, operational objectives and employee commitments?
And finally, we agree on the reward for winning—perhaps a simple bet like a round of drinks. It’s not too different from the incentives and rewards businesses offer for achieving success.
Once these elements are in place, we’re truly playing the game. Whether our tennis match follows the official rules to the letter or not is beside the point—we’ve created a structure that gives our actions context and our play purpose. That’s what businesses need: a system designed to encourage every player to engage fully in the game.
To transform your workforce from participants to competitors, they must become literate in the language of business. Just as a tennis player must know the significance of the lines on the court, employees must understand the financial boundaries within which they operate. By educating every member of your team on the financial statements—the scoreboard of business—they become empowered to make decisions that serve the greater strategy of the organisation.
High Employee Involvement: The Game Changer
High employee involvement is not merely about sharing information but implementing a business “operating system” that empowers employees to leverage this knowledge effectively. It’s about enabling every employee to understand and contribute to the company’s success.
To sum up, imagine the competitive edge you could gain if every employee arrived at work with an owner’s drive and strategic insight.
That is the potential of high employee involvement—a potential that Ninety-Days is passionate about helping organisations realise.
