Ian Dyer
By: Ian Dyer – Bayshore Solutions’ Vice President
Bayshore Solutions Management team recently engaged in the opportunity, alongside Tampa Bay YPO, to gain insights from renowned business consultant Keith McFarland. The discussion was based on a summarization of the highlights contained within his book The Breakthrough Company – How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinariness Performers. The discussion was engaging and enlightening while offering recommended formulas for success.
My top-five key takeaways from the conversation include:
1. Leadership’s Focus – Should focus on breaking routines. Companies learn with their ‘foreheads’ – they bump into stuff, they don’t like it, and quickly make changes. This is normal.
2. Strategy consists of three phases – Starts with a collection of “ideas” on how to win where this insight becomes a decision point, and actions are taken! Listen to your markets, competitors and customers – what is good for business today may not be for tomorrow.
3. Corporate Character not Culture – There is no such thing as a corporate culture; there is only how we treat each other. You can’t fake character!
4. People – It is not about hiring the right people, it’s about making the people right. Spend more time coaching than recruiting. Celebrate productive failure.
5. Communicate the Strategy – A strategy that everyone understands, believes in, and knows their part. The link between strategy and team performance is real. This is the essence of team building!
It was a brilliant discussion and hard for me to boil it down to merely a top-five. The list is not intended to be the stepped-approach for each and every Breakthrough Company. Yet in analysis of over 7,000 of America’s fastest growing private and public companies, these traits were seen among each one. These companies were not only those able to achieve Breakthrough success but also sustain and thrive!
Ian Dyer is a Vice President at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.