What’s the problem? The problem is that your team has grown stale. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people or that they aren’t working hard. In fact, that’s what makes this problem difficult to spot. Everyone shows up. The work gets done. Customers are taken care of. The company is making money.
But if you’re being honest, things don’t look much different than they did two or three years ago – you’ve stopped getting better.
It starts showing up in places that matter. You’re competing for new opportunities but not winning enough of them. Your best customers like you, but you’re not growing those relationships the way you should. Recruiting has become harder because good people have choices, and they want to work somewhere that feels like it’s going somewhere.
And eventually, it shows up in the financials. Revenue flattens and margins get tighter. Productivity gains are harder to come by, and you find yourself spending more time talking about how tough the market is and less time talking about what you’re going to do differently.
You’re stuck.
The problem with being stuck is that it doesn’t necessarily feel bad. There’s no crisis. No alarm goes off. Business continues along and everybody stays busy. Good enough slowly becomes the standard.
Good enough slowly becomes the standard.
It’s easy to point the finger at a complacent workforce. I hear it all the time: “People just don’t want it like they used to.” Yeah, maybe. But I’d start somewhere else. I’d encourage you to look in the mirror.
The role of the leader – the coach, if you will – is to keep the team on point. That starts with your own behavior. Are you still pushing yourself and the business to get better? Are you asking questions that make people think? Are you challenging the things you’ve been doing for years simply because that’s how you’ve always done them? Or are you phoning it in too? Yes, this is hard.
And look at how you’re managing the organization. Are you setting expectations and allowing the people you hired to do their jobs? Or does every decision still need to run through you? You hired these people for a reason. Give them room to perform – and be clear about what you expect. Make sure everyone understands where the company is going and what their role is in getting there. Then hold people accountable for delivering.
In my practice, I see better results with organizations that have the right people doing the right work for the right reasons. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. Sometimes the person who was right for the business five years ago isn’t the right person today. Sometimes someone has simply been sitting in the wrong seat. And sometimes good people have lost their edge because nobody has expected anything more from them.
That’s leadership’s job to address.
It may require a few uncomfortable conversations. Some people will respond to the challenge. Some won’t but that’s OK. The objective isn’t to keep everybody comfortable. It’s to get the business moving forward again.
When you get it right, the energy in the room is hard to beat. People start bringing ideas instead of waiting for direction. They take more ownership. Meetings get better and decisions get made faster. And customers notice because they’re dealing with people who are engaged and looking for ways to help them. Most companies brag about the strength of their people.
OK. Then use it.
Use your people and your culture as a competitive edge with your clients. Use it to attract like-minded people who want to work with other good people. Use it to drive the consistency and performance that produces better financial results. And create an environment where your best people want to stay because they’re still learning, still being challenged and still having some fun along the way.
That’s when culture stops being something you talk about and starts becoming part of how you win. Your people can absolutely be your greatest asset. But good people, left on autopilot, can get stale too. It’s the leader’s job to make sure they don’t.
Mike Philie helps owners and CEOs in the Graphic communications industry validate what’s working, identify what needs to change, and create a practical path forward.
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