“Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.” – Ken Blanchard
This article series started with the idea of teaching the core value “serve” to over 300 employees. Serving well through servant leadership has been a focus for Ken Blanchard and his company for over 40 years. In his work, Blanchard lays out four keys to serving well as a leader. They are:
– Set your sights on the right target and vision.
– Treat customers right.
– Treat your people right.
– Have the right kind of leadership.
Today, we’ll learn how to set the right targets. The right target for a servant leader is the triple bottom line. The three bottom lines are:
– Provider of choice
– Employer of choice
– Investment of choice
Provider of choice means you are the first choice for your target market. When they need what you provide they call you first. The same goes for being an employer of choice. Will you be the best employer for everyone? No. But you can be the best employer for your target employee.
With customers and employees, it is important to remember that you can’t be everything to everyone. Every business has a personality that most refer to as “culture.” Some personalities rub people wrong but are very attractive to others.
The same goes for businesses. Know who you want to be and who you want to attract. Your culture is codified in your core values, vision and purpose.
Providers and employers of choice have a much greater likelihood of being an investment of choice. Engaged and motivated team members create customers who are fans and want to see you succeed. Pair that with financial literacy throughout the organization and you have a great shot of being an investment of choice.
Only high-performing organizations can deliver on the triple bottom line consistently. Blanchard states that great organizations perform well because they are good at the six elements of the HPO SCORES model. Let’s look at each of those elements:
Shared Information and Open Communication: HPOs make the information needed to make decisions readily available and openly communicated to everyone. Sharing information and facilitating open communication builds trust and encourages employees to act like owners.
Compelling Vision: Blanchard states that a compelling vision is the hallmark of a high-performing organization. A compelling vision includes the purpose, core values and inspiring vision of the organization’s future.
The clarity created by a compelling vision creates a deliberate, highly focused culture that drives results toward the greater good of all.
Ongoing Learning: HPOs constantly focus on improving individual and organizational capabilities through learning systems, building knowledge capital and transferring learning throughout the organization. Individual learning is different from organizational learning. HPOs engage in both.
Relentless Focus on Customer Results: HPOs know who their target customer is and how to serve them with excellence. They constantly measure their performance as defined by the customer and continuously seek to improve.
Energizing Systems and Structures: HPOs have systems, structures, practices, and processes that make it easier for employees to deliver results that get the team closer to realizing their vision.
Shared Power and High Involvement: HPOs value the hands, hearts and minds of everyone on the team. They share information and decision-making throughout the organization. Participation, collaboration and teamwork are a way of life.
Leadership is the engine that drives high-performing organizations. Unlike traditional organizations, HPOs do not rely on cultivating great, charismatic leaders. Instead, they focus on building a visionary organization that endures beyond any leader. Great leaders focus their teams on the vision, not the leader. That is how great, enduring organizations are built.
How do you and your team rate yourselves on the six elements of the SCORES model? How can you score better next quarter and next year?
We love helping leaders build great companies and we’ve got some great free resources for you in our resource library. You can check them out here –www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.
Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey.
Curt and the team at FHRS help leaders build great companies through Virtual CFO, strategy, tax and accounting services.
Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and five children. (Welcome Baby Owen – June 2021!)
