Follow These 8 Must-Lead Processes to Achieve Your Business Goals

When I think of Thomas Edison ruling out 9,999 ways to get a light bulb to work before arriving at the 10,000th one that did, I am reminded of the expression that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. 

The same concept applies to business strategy–the idea of what a company should do to achieve rapid growth is the 1 percent. It’s the 99 percent–dubbed strategy execution–that determines whether you achieve your ambitious growth goals.

In my 2019 book, Scaling Your Startup, I wrote about the Seven Scaling Levers–such as building growth trajectories, sustaining culture, and redefining job functions.

Until February 9, when I interviewed Mahesh Rajasekharan, CEO of Rockford, Illinois-based Cleo Communications–a supply chain software as a service provider that counts Walmart and Amazon among its customers–I had not seen such a comprehensive example of another key scaling lever: holding people accountable.

I liked it so much that I thought it would be helpful to my readers. Here are eight processes for holding people accountable that you must use to get results based on Cleo’s approach. 

Leaders must decide, say, how fast they want the company to grow and choose the strategies required to reach those goals.

In the fourth quarter, Cleo conducts a strategic planning process in which it articulates its five-year corporate strategy, sets one year goals, and plans for hiring the people it will need to implement the strategy and meet its annual goals.

This approach enables a company to think about where it wants to be in the long term, while making annual investments which can be adjusted in response to changes in its competitive environment.

Different departments of your company–such as product development or sales–should set goals that, if reached, will contribute to achieving corporate goals.

Cleo sets goals for each department annually and quarterly. Its departments team up to set goals to ensure that they line up with corporate aims. While sales and operations set annual goals, product development teams operate with a three-year product vision, within which they follow annual product development road maps.

I like the way this process holds departments accountable for their own goals and for corporate objectives.

To make each employee accountable, Cleo encourages every individual to take responsibility for up to three departmental goals.

Leaders should monitor individuals’ progress monthly to keep the organization focused on key priorities. 

Leaders should review how well departments are meeting their goals each month.

Cleo asks departments to present their plan on a single page, linking their department objectives to the company’s goals. These meetings celebrate successes, identify where departments are falling short, and describe actions departments will take to get back on track.

Such meetings help leaders identify where the departments are falling short and if so, evaluate whether their leaders take the initiative to solve problems, or whether they blame others.

Since public companies present their results to investors each quarter, it is useful to prepare people accordingly.

Cleo does this through quarterly business previews which highlights progress, celebrating where goals have been exceeded, and committing to clear action plans to course correct where the team is falling behind.

Most companies depend heavily on its salespeoples’ ability to keep a steady pipeline for turning prospects into buyers.

Cleo views each salesperson as CEO of their sales territory. To that end, each week the company reviews each region’s sales pipelines and deals to make sure that quotas will be achieved. 

At the other end of the spectrum, companies must think about longer-term forces that could boost or slash demand for the company’s products.

To that end, Cleo conducts mind mapping sessions, a form of brainstorming, in which people consider key trends such as the rise in e-commerce during the pandemic. Cleo sets up cross-functional teams that identify key opportunities and risks, and prepares action plans to seize opportunities or improve processes.

Finally, you should always be evaluating whether your team has the best talent and if not, take action to upgrade it.

Cleo conducts talent reviews in which it gauges how people are performing and seeks ways to “grow, hire, and upgrade talent [so it can become] the leader in ecosystem integration.”