You want to focus on the 4Ps because they generate the highest levels of business success in the shortest time.  Whilst each engagement is always tailored to meet client needs, there are some core principles that consistently make massive differences when you want or need to improve performance.  They are:

People

1. “Get the right people on the bus”

Both from a talent and a values perspective. The best managers spend most time on people matters (both reactive and proactive). So at least 50% of your time on people related issues is a good rule of thumb. If this seems high, remember that “Someone who achieves things through others,” is the definition of “”What is a manager?” And when working to improve employee performance, Focus on Strengths.

2. Be clear on what you want and why you want it.

Once you have been as clear as anyone can be, assume your people have 72 or even 48 hour amnesia when goal setting and be ready to restate them with equal passion tomorrow - oops, make that 24 hour amnesia.

3. Support them by getting them what they need.

Dealing with obstacles and giving them excessive levels of feedback (until you have trained them to do this themselves).

4. Get out of the Way.

Purpose

1. Make it meaningful and Believeable.

There is a great deal or wishful thinking in the business press about purpose at work from a spiritual/ saving humanity perspective. If you can cultivate this, great. Most people, especially younger employees want meaningful jobs. Remember though that it doesn’t need to be an awe-inspiring purpose that Mother Teresa would weep tears of joy over. You’re in business. If it is too cheesy (detached from their daily reality), your people will find it demotivating.

2. Remember All Company Purposes are the Same.

What you must do is to give your people a chance to care about what they are doing and this is where a smaller purpose becomes crucial. And on a day to day basis, we have found this type of company purpose always come down to something like

1. Delight your customers today and

2. Strive for the highest possible levels of delight tomorrow. Achievement is fun. If it isn't, change jobs until it is.

3. Focus on the Daily Purpose.

Further, to generate daily high performance you must remember the purpose of the project review, the team meeting or the Board meeting – whatever it is you are doing to delight your customers. When you want to improve short term performance, this is the type of purpose that delivers the biggest ROI.

Process

Could you afford to lose a Key Leader for Six Months?

In large firms , process often has a bad name among employees as it become synonymous with "bureacracy" and “control”.  This is not without justification but is disappointing and damaging for the business and its people.

A company with strong processes that support the business and the employees should be able to lose key people and be largely unaffected for 6 -12 months. If you couldn’t step back from your business for 6 months and leave short term performance unaffected, you do not really have a business but a group of jobs.  And it is time to get into process building.

Are Your Leaders Weakening the Company?

Ironically, you often find that companies that still have their founder at the helm are often the worst for insufficient (life threatening) processes. The leader is so effective with far too much wisdom stored in their heads that if anything happened to them, the company could effectively cease trading, sometimes losing £millions in value.  This may be caused by the sense of ownership the founder has.  The problem isn't with that sense of ownership. It is with their trying to solve day to day problems when their biggest job is really to encourage that sense of ownership in their employees. 

"Process" = "Recipe"

For us “Process” is synonymous with “recipes” or “supportive structures” that help people achieve excellence. We all have recipes for everything we do - from managing cash flow to building relationships. The problem is that most of these processes are unconscious and are not sufficiently ingrained to generate consistent results. So sometimes people follow their process, other times they don’t.

We can help you build robust, supportive processes that generate consistent, exemplary performance. If you are a company founder and would struggle to leave your firm for more than 6 days let alone 6 months, call us. You’ll be amazed at how quickly we can help you get focused on leading your company instead of managing it.

Profit

People+Purpose + Process = Profit

The 4th P could be read as the consequence of the first three - People+Purpose + Process = Profit. What we also do is to use the 4th P as a link to explore an organisation's financial performance. To be clear, business isn't about finance. But finance keeps a business going. Finance is to business what blood is to the the human body. We help your people understand the financial rules of business, how cash flow is the crucial element, how profit is made, how they help to make profit and how they can help increase it. Knowledge that is crucial in building a high performance organisation.

Why is financial illiteracy so widespread?

The level of financial illiteracy in companies today is staggering . Even more amazing is the lack of concern from senior executives. Can you imagine players on a professional soccer team not understanding the rules of the game? How successful will they be? How much wasted effort would there be through lost goals caused by unintentional rule breaking? In your business, how much cash flow and profit is lost due to people simply being ignorant of how it is created?

Combine the Ps for the greatest impact.

Whilst these four Ps have been described separately they all work off each other. The biggest wins come from combining them. For example, you can strengthen processes as you help people improve performance. So you would ideally build them all together but most often 2-3 at a time generates the best results.

In summary, people and purpose largely determine the level of effectiveness. Process largely determines efficiency and profit tells you how well you are doing with the first three.