An organization is as good as its employees. A recent
article published by McKinsey on their blog asks organizations and CEOs if they
are building capabilities of their employees across the four most critical
areas or not. The article goes on to explain how it can make or break an organization.
Let’s take a closer look at what they had to say:
It is no longer a secret that for any organization to have long-term sustainability, when it comes to performance, two things matter:
1. How the organization works (performance)
2. How the leaders/managers run the organization (health)
“Are your employees performing to the best of their capabilities? Are your company goals well-known among your employees or not?
Any organization that works on both of these fronts, inevitably performs three times better than its competitors.
According to the writers of
McKinsey blog, leaders who go one step further and focus on performance and
their management style equally on both organizational and individual levels,
create even more value for the organization.
There is also no doubt that driving health and performance is not an easy task, even for the most experienced and learned leaders. Ensuring that this happens requires a leader to focus on all the levels of the organization.
One of the ways this can be done is by introducing capability-building programs
for employees that build skills, behaviors and knowledge in four critical
areas:
Four Critical Areas to Work on
1. Teaching them the business
This can also be dubbed as how the organization makes money and generates
business. For the employees to give their best to the organization, ensure that
they know the strategies, goals and priorities of the organization.
When employees
are informed about the company’s vision and both long-term and short-term goals,
it becomes easier for them to align their own goals with that of company’s.
An example shared on the McKinsey blog explained is pretty well. For instance, an
agricultural company asks its top 100 leaders to fill out one-page in which
they note down the efforts they are putting in in their units, how they define
success and how it is serving company’s agenda and goals.
These questions will
help the leaders in visualizing if they are going in the right direction or
not, communicating with the team and encouraging everyone to take initiatives
that boosts the organization’s overall performance.