Culture and Strategy: Why your team’s problems lead back to you

Why do some businesses consistently outperform their competitors while others, despite strong products and capable people, struggle to hold direction? Guest writer Murray Fulton of Advantage Business has spent years working with business owners across industries of all sizes and he points to the same recurring problems: leaders who lack consistency, shy away from transparency, and fail to build real accountability into their culture. In this article, Murray explores how these gaps quietly erode motivation and performance, and what it takes to fix them.

Are you the problem?

One of two areas that take up over 50% of my focus is business culture and strategy. So many of my clients struggle with consistency because, in their view, there are constant changes in the business environment and competitive pressures.

I ask clients to select the most critical areas are to be consistent about. Then we create tailored actions to communicate the messages that team leaders crave, and successful businesses deliver.

As the leader of your business, you must demonstrate consistency around,

• Business strategy
• The expectations you have of your people
• Your business values
• And the value proposition your business offers its customers and prospects

When you demonstrate consistency, you allow your people to follow your lead, develop themselves, and deliver their sustainable best.

Inconsistency is detrimental to a business. It robs the people of their direction, motivation, and purpose. Consistency is the most powerful tool to cultivate the organisational culture you wish to have.

The good, bad, or ugly truth

Many of my clients also struggle to be transparent. They tend to play safe and share little because financial, commercial and market information is sensitive and complex. Added to that, the level of understanding of this factual data will vary to a great degree across their teams.

Your people expect the truth, no matter whether it is good, bad, or ugly. When you are transparent, it nurtures team spirit. The evidence is clear; consistent and transparently led businesses outperform those that are not.

As a business leader, you must overcome the fear and doubt around sharing information with your people. I spend quite a lot of time helping my clients come to grips with what to share and when and how to share it.

An approach that works well is to ensure that year to year, the good, the bad, and the ugly business performance and commercial results are shared at a summary level.

These results can be shared in a way that answers the number one question that all your people will have, ‘What does this mean for me?’

Consistent and transparent leaders lay the foundation of a strong business culture. One in which the leadership team is fully supported to execute a clear strategy.

The secret to sustained success

For your business to succeed sustainably, you ask a great deal of your people. They must uphold your standards, execute the strategy and be held accountable. So first, they will need to see that as their leader, you are also visibly accountable.

People need to know where they stand and your expectations of them, the business, and yourself.

They also need to support what you stand for as a leader and understand their roles in the business. Only then can they develop themselves to fully play their part. Ensuring the business moves forward as quickly and positively as possible.

Everyone must be accountable for their roles, their results, and for delivering on the expected standards of their management. If even one person is not held to account while all others are, then the business is not living and breathing accountability.

When times are tough

Every person within your business needs to support their colleagues, especially when times are tough. I am often challenged when making this statement. It comes down to a well-recognised flaw in human nature. When under constant pressure, we think more about ourselves than anyone else.

The answer is to align the drivers in the business with a connection to the hearts and minds of the key people. The details of exactly how this is done are unique to each business. At its core lies the leader’s personality, skills and areas of strength. These attributes have a ripple effect, like water when a stone is dropped into a still pond.

The last piece is accelerating towards the ‘top speed’ of the business, which I get to work on with several clients. It involves subtle but critical adjustments to business operations whilst nourishing core values and culture. How ‘top speed’ looks varies, but its ‘fuel’ is always the same: quality leadership, communication, strategy, and execution throughout the business.

I have seen that when consistency, transparency and accountability are embedded within the culture and leadership of a business, mutual support is possible. It becomes a realistic and affirming option for your people to practice and live everyday.

And so mutual support for each person and each team within your business, a vital component of quality business performance, rests ultimately with you as its leader. You must lead and develop consistency, transparency and accountability within your business so providing mutual support becomes an accepted behaviour for all your people.