To build the resilient organization it would be beneficial for senior management to follow tactics deployed by most successful family-controlled enterprises.  The first key principle is “Understand what is working … do more of it”.

All of us have heard the adage, “eyes bigger than your stomach”.  Most young companies suffer from this as a result of several ailments, such as passion, drive, arrogance, stubbornness, etc.  Typical signs that a company has fallen into this trap are the need to offer products to all demographic groups, add every functionality or feature customers ask for, or develop every piece of marketing collateral known to man to grow the business. Most times, these are symptoms from one underlying problem … a lack of vision from the founder, owner, CEO, etc. The best way to test for this is to ask a simple question:

“How do you make money and from whom?”

It’s understandable in the start-up phase a company will need to tinker and experiment to get their formula right, but there is a point that all companies cross which is the need to get their hands out of every pie in the marketplace. But some of the most successful organizations are those that can clearly articulate their product/service and target market.  If you can do that, you’re ahead of the game. This clarity brings wonders to your management team's effectiveness.  They have direction, focus, a hill to take, passion to latch onto, etc.

Now on to the nuts and bolts.

Start with your sales and marketing teams. Can they articulate what channels and tactics have returned the highest ROI or lowest CPA, etc. Now to see them dance. What’s the next most effective…and then the next.  If they can rank order results and demonstrate they are prioritizing based on those then you’re on the right track.  Doing more of the tactics that continue to produce strong results will not only bring efficiencies in your efforts, it will also drive your greatest revenue generating results.

Too often I’ve seen marketing organizations focus on the creative elements of their work.  That’s important, but the measurement side is much more important.  If you don’t have a team that is capable of providing data driven analysis over creative, then you’re in trouble. You’ll be blowing money and effort into the wind.

I remember interviewing a candidate for a creative director position who would oversees all aspects of creative development: concept, design, production, analysis. They would have folks reporting to them handling each of these functions, thus it was important their leader has a grasp on how to leverage the team.  During the interview process the candidate proceeded to show me wonderful, beautiful, stunning creative pieces that were deployed by a pre-eminent hotel chain of which this person led that effort.  Many of the samples were direct mail collateral and many others were direct to consumer emails.  I studied them closely while the candidate presented them with much passion and a level of de-constructive detail that was impressive.

Then the interview went south.  I ask him how they track the results of these campaign.  The candidate didn’t understand the question.  He simply stated the analysis department handled that.  I said fine, but where is the tracking codes? Then the ultimate fumble…”Oh, these pieces weren’t tracked. It wasn’t important.”

Unfortunately, I knew tracking was very important to that particular organization  the candidate hailed from and those collateral samples were classic examples of what they do.  Lets just say, the candidate wasn’t a good fit.

Each of your teams must be able to articulate their priorities within each of their functional areas and measures against them.  Otherwise, a tremendous amount of effort and energy will be wasted guessing at what really works.  This applies across the organization.

Finance should provide you with top financial health metrics and many accounting organizations have operational metrics to closely monitor.  Transactions processed, customer service response time, time to invoice, etc. What are their priorities … ask them or start telling them if they can’t.

Operations, the same process. Top metrics, top initiatives to drive efficiencies. What is working, what isn’t.  Do more of what works and less of … you got it.

As any family-controlled enterprise will tell you, having a firm grasp on the key metrics of your “operating” business is mission critical to understanding its health. Having your functional areas reporting in with those and present understanding of what’s working and not will provide any senior management team with a rock star operational endeavor. Maybe even sleep soundly at night!