Sometimes, people ask me about my ‘method’ for moving a company in trouble to one that improves by 30% in the first year. They expect me to say that by
applying ‘this’ or working on ‘that’ we manifested the turnaround. But the answer
is simpler than that: what we did is to help move the body and soul of the
company from 5% towards 80%. Let me explain.
Let us say we are dealing with a small firm of 53 people. I see that company – not
consisting of a marketing department, a manufacturing department, an accounting
department, etc. – but as a company made up of 53 parts, one for each person in
the organization.
The Body-and-Soul Component
The simple question is: how many people in this company presently appear to be
moving body and soul every day to help this company grow and excel? Why not ask
and reflect on that question of your own company right now and jot down the
number of such people. Our goal at CCCC is to achieve an 80% mark over the long
term for this component of the client company’s performance.
Caveat
As you can imagine, the body-and-soul component is internal to the individual. We
could not teach that; all we can do is to remove the barriers that prevent people
from being willing to commit themselves fully to the company. It follows that, if
after an extensive time we cannot get commitment from a person to the company,
that individual would be better off employed elsewhere, a place where that person
can recover intrinsic enthusiasm. And the company will be better off without them,
clearing the way so that a new individual can have the opportunity to bring
enthusiasm to this enterprise. Or in everyday parlance, the bad apples have to be
encouraged to leave. The more bad apples that depart, the higher the final ‘body
and soul’ score will be – automatically. If these unhappy people stay, they would
drag their pervasive effect onto the company’s actual bottom line. We encourage
the company, when looking for new employees, to sacrifice technical talent for
positive attitude. We opine that you can teach technical skills, but you cannot very
easily teach attitude.
Aiming for a Reasonable Goal
As stated above, an 80% goal for the body-and-soul component is reasonable. 100%
remains a dream
A Real Example
We worked with a company in Alberta in heavy manufacturing which had 53
employees. That, as I said above, would be comprised of 53 parts – one per
employee. At first I met with the upper management team to determine if and how
CCCC would go about assisting them. Then we held a 3-day session involving 11
participants. After that 3-day meeting I could say with confidence that:
1. 7 people were throwing their body and soul into the company. Chalk up 7
body-and-soul points.
2. The total score: 7 divided by the total above of 53 parts; that is 13% to start.
Although the CCCC program takes about 3 years to implement, it was instructive one
year later to see how we were doing. At a planning session a year later, involving 13
participants, we found the following:
1. That 13 people, as well as 2 people not at this meeting (but who attended the
previous year’s one), were throwing their body and souls into the
company. Added to this were 2 recent hires, chosen because of attitude to
now a 55-person company. Chalk up 17 body-and-soul points against a total
of 55 parts.
2. The total score: 17 divided by the total above of 55 parts; that is 31%.
In the space of one year the company had moved from 13% to 31% – an almost 2-
1/2-times improvement. No wonder production was up, sales had climbed (during a
bad time of the local economy), and the company was full of new optimism.
A substantial effort had been spent by the company in training 3 key-staff members
in the CCCC approach so that people within the firm could implement the next stages
of the program without CCCC intervention. Although there would be a long way to go
from 31% to an ideal 80%, two more doublings over the next two years – a realistic
possibility – would see the 80% number achieved. And every step of the way would
bring in more bottom-line profits.
Slow and steady with a clear plan, with simple measures, is the strategy that paves
the way towards success.
Good luck on your body-and-soul mission.
Bill