Core Focus - clarity & alignment to improve
This is note #4 of 6 doing a deeper dive into a framework we are building toward.
Let’s talk Core Focus.
It’s the strategic position that’s going to take us to the next level.
It’s how we position in the marketplace. Everything the leadership team does should tie back to.
For every company, there are 3 different levels of sophistication of the core focus:
Reliable
Responsive
Innovative
We’re already reliable. We get the job done.
The next level of a Core Focus for us to reach is Responsive.
Being Responsive will allow us to get the job done safer, faster, and more profitably.
To become Responsive, we need the following entrenched in our culture:
Vision (where we’re going)
Values (behaviors)
People (right people, right seats, clarity of roles)
Data (score cards, measuring the right things, inspect what you expect, field reports information promptly)
Processes (Lean, continuous improvement, elimination of waste, systems documented)
Handling Issues (confronting issues, no backbiting)
The mantra of the Navy Seals: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”
We’re aspiring for operations to be “Super Smooth” every single day. Rain or shine.
There will always be issues. There will always be personnel situations. It’s a business with humans.
But over time as we dial in and execute on our Core Focus of Super Smooth the issues and the “fires” will get less severe and less frequent.
Having focus gives us, the leadership team, permission to say NO to other opportunities.
"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." - Stephen Covey
As we dial in on our Core Focus, we have the capacity to become extraordinarily responsive to our customer‘s needs from all departments: sales, purchasing, operations, administration, HR, Safety, & finance.
The Core Focus will evolve as the company evolves. Once we are Super Smooth, then our core focus will focus on how we want to be innovative in our industry.
For now, let’s get Super Smooth.
Onward,
Matt