CEOs and other C-Level executives are expected to bring results – to keep their eyes on the bottom line driving productivity, efficiencies, time to market, new products and services. So, what approach are they utilizing to facilitate that bottom line? That’s the question most CEOs ask themselves in order to find the payoff.  

Top executives who focus primarily on process produce winning results time and again. It’s simple math; the results are a direct by-product of the process. But this balance is much more than a numbers game. The sum total of organizational success rests upon an even bigger quotient – one that keeps momentum at the forefront. It’s about the human potential that exists in your organization – the people – who keep “processes” firing on all cylinders.    

4 Key Processes That Drive Momentum and Brilliant Results

Vision

Results are just data points that let leaders know how effectively their team, plans, and organizations are driving to the established destination. The vision sets the destination. Without this clarity, your team doesn’t know which road to take leading to lack of confidence in decision making, disengagement, or consistently feeling uneasy. The vision is an inspirational stretch forward that defines the company’s direction (even its identity). 

How clearly have you crafted, articulated, and explained the vision? Without it results will be scattered at best.

Unfiltering Reality

All the experiences, victories and defeats, internal and external relationships that a company and individual team members have witnessed, have created a series of filters that hardwire how you collectively see, process, and interpret everything that unfolds.  These filters often predetermine the opportunities that you and the team will foresee, the decisions that’ll be made, and how the team will collaborate.  These filters are responsible for the results you are seeing – for better or worse. 

What filters does your organization have?  How do you and the team, respectively, feed these filters? What are the potential effects or impact associated with such filters?

Confident Buy In

Commitment is exponential when it comes to results.  Most people hold back to some degree (whether it's by 1% or 99%), and that hesitation prevents them from leaning in with their full potential. This marks a tipping point in building momentum. The question is, will the scales tip in your favor?  Without high levels or even full engagement of your employees, momentum will be inevitably slower. This equates to an organization that inherits not only smaller gains, but a shortfall in attaining the critical mass to necessitate meaningful progress in the first place.  

Building buy in will encourage commitment, but goes beyond addressing the “what’s in it for you” mentality – although that should never be overlooked. “Confident buy in” is often built by being overt, (no assumptions about what people see or understand), about the purpose driving the vision, or about what specifically needs to be accomplished. Transparently discussing these finer points, however, demonstrates both listening and understanding which then leads to confidence and commitment.

How transparently and constructively does your team and organization discuss concerns that chip away at having a confident buy in? What’s one activity you can introduce to boost confidence?

Debriefing and Rallying

Many military officers have cited debriefing as one of the most critical drivers of the ongoing success of a campaign. While organizations are no strangers to meetings, how many have a defined debriefing process for reviewing critical decisions, situations, and progress?  How many look at the process and factors that lead to a decision, current circumstances, and progress?  Debriefing allows you to respond to the ongoing changes in assumptions, perspectives, markets, performance, and other implications that create fluctuations and influence results.

Debriefs can yield critical information as to best practices as well as course corrections.  Setbacks do not need to be viewed as defeats or even poor performance.  Debriefs – which should be done for BOTH setbacks AND major accomplishments – can serve as rallying points to reinforce the vision, unfilter the reality of what’s working and what’s not, and steadily build confidence and buy in.

What would debriefing add to your organization’s performance?  How could debriefing be used to create rallying points to add to your progress?

Examine the filters and the level of commitment that you and your organization employ at any one particular time. Then, focus on these key processes – the “less tangible” scorecard of results. You’ll see how much momentum you can build over the next six months.