Bold Execution Requires an Effective Organizational and Sales Strategy Structure

Bold Execution Requires an Effective Organizational and Sales Strategy Structure

The best leaders understand the anatomy of strategy, discover the green space, shift accordingly, and execute boldly.

In this 3-Part series, Paul Cronin, Executive Coach, and colleague, Robert Crumpton, share valuable key insights on how business leaders might create a sales strategy structure to obtain a dominant position in today’s volatile marketplace. (See full article at Leadership in a Changed World: How to Leverage These 3 Skills in a Changed World)

Part 1: Leadership is a Critical Skill Set in Times of Calamity.

Part 2:  Innovative Leaders Capture Opportunity.

In Part 3, we discuss the organizational structure that supports your business recovery.

Key 3: Bold Execution Requires an Effective Organizational Structure

Bold execution happens when an organization has the correct organizational design. Organizational design controls behavior. Set up correctly, you can achieve “exit velocity.”

Set up poorly, you get an anchor.

The right organizational structure will support faster execution, improved visibility and clarity, accountability, and collaboration.

Here is a video discussion:

Having the Right People in the Right Seats is Essential

Functions focused on efficiency should never control functions focused on effectiveness. And functions focused on short term results should never control functions focused on long-term development. If your strategy changes, you will likely need to change your organizational structure.

What might you do to ensure that your organizational structure is set up to drive business recovery?

• You must have the right people in the right seats with a role alignment card that clearly defines the purpose of the position, the company’s critical number, the functional department’s critical number, as well as the critical number for the role.
• The role alignment card must document the company’s priorities, the functional departments’ priorities, and the individuals’ priorities for a 90-day period.
• The daily role responsibilities for each position must be clearly explained and listed in order of importance.
• The amount of time necessary to do the work should be noted, along with the outcome of their effort and how that outcome is measured effectively and efficiently.
• Done correctly, the Role Alignment Card creates clear role responsibility and line-of-site between the individual, their functional area, and the overall company goal.

Ask the Right Questions When Recruiting Talent

When talent is recruited, they should be invited into the seat by their supervisor by asking three essential questions:

• Does the candidate understand the importance that this seat has in the company’s success?
• Does the candidate want this position, such that they are excited to own it?
• Can the candidate deliver on the expectations, clearly laid out in the position’s role alignment card as an ‘A’ player?

Behavioral questions should likewise be asked around 3 values. You want to determine that the candidate is…

• Driven and accountable
• Team focused versus ‘Me’ focused
• People smart (has a strong Emotional Quotient)

Rapid Problem Resolution Requires Critical Meeting Rhythms

When you have the right organizational structure with the right people in the right seats and working together in cross-functional teams, you get rapid, successful problem resolution, decisive action, and accountability. More issues are identified, and better decisions are made faster.

The catalytic mechanism for rapid issue identification, resolution, decisions, and execution are meeting rhythms. However, most people hate meetings because they are so poorly facilitated, and they become a waste of time.

What might you do to strengthen your meeting rhythms?

The frequency and agenda of meetings are critical. Well-run meetings are welcome and essential to create “exit velocity”. Meetings of this nature create clarity, alignment, team health, accountability, and speed.

The purpose and sequence of meetings include:

• Daily Stand Up Meetings – accountability, rapid awareness of stuck situations, team health.
• Weekly Team Meetings – team health, awareness, on-track performance, accountability, issues Identification, and resolution.
• Quarterly Planning and Annual Planning Meetings – review organizational design, people, trends, issues, strategy and establish priorities for the upcoming period. 

Summary

We are a resilient people. We have not only survived, but thrived, through the Revolutionary War; the Civil War; World War I; the Spanish Flu; The Great Depression; World War II; The Korean War; The Vietnam War; the civil unrest of the 1960’s; recessions in the 1970’s and 1980’s; the 2000’s .com bomb; 911; the Great Recession of 2008; SARS; and now, this!

We are Americans. We have been through the worst of times and the best of times.

In the first post in this 3-Part series, Paul and Robert submit that there are 3 things leaders must get good at, quickly:

• Leadership,
• Innovation, and
• Execution.

Now more than ever before, your leadership matters. Remember that your leadership is a critical skill set during times of calamity. Use your innovation to capture opportunity. Finally, execute with boldness by developing an effective organizational structure.

We have GRIT!!! Let’s live up to our legacy. We got this!

Here are the links to the previous articles in this series:

3 Powerful Strategies for Sales Growth in Recovery (Video Also)

Innovative Leaders Capture Opportunity and Accelerate Sales Growth

Join Paul & me for a free virtual coffee meeting

Having challenges keeping your team engaged and focused in a productive direction? We invite you to schedule a free virtual coffee meeting with us. No charge, no obligation. Just 45 minutes to talk through what challenges are happening, receive personal tips, advice, and next steps on how to solve those challenges. To schedule, email me at danita@DanitaBye.com