Regardless of Big, Small or Medium Company, Don't Turn Back

Let me go straight: You need to Know What's Most Important so that you can focus your resources on this, otherwise you would be losing focus and getting less than what you want.  No matter what, don't turn back, just keep on moving forward...

1. If You're a Big Company (with more than 100 staff): ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

The bigger the company, the less risk adverse are the people as most of them would be concerned with their own career rather than the company's growth. Also, the company's structure makes it difficult to do things that are outside the company's policies and procedures.  Hence most employees would play it safe and inside their comfort zone. 

Thus the company's management would need to lead the staff in comfort zone to be more entrepreneurial, take risks and try different things. 

Otherwise, the company would end up like Nokia, Blackberry and Motorola - all former top 3 in mobile phones now occupying less than 15% combined market share. 

One good way is to instil competition in the workplace, like giving good accounts to those that perform well and get the bottom 10% performers to come up with a Catch-Up Plan. 

2. If You're a Small Company (with 10 staff or less):

There is no question of entrepreneurship as the small company's structure is very flexible and employees can try out different things.

The issue is with systems and procedures. The smaller company would need to rely on systems and not on human so that the company can run on auto-pilot. The 4 main systems to have are people & education, delivery & distribution, systems & technology and finance & measurement.

A good way to start systematizing is HR, where you set up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for each function.  The KPIs must reflect not just quantitative measurements, but qualitative measurements like knowledge, discipline and tidiness. 

3. If You're a Medium Company (between 11 to 100 staff):

The issue is your company must continue to grow and prevent itself from being complacent. As a Business Coach & Trainer having trained 81,131 people in 13 countries since 1996, I have seen many medium companies becoming complacent because they occupy a certain niche in the market and are enjoying good business and profits.  In fact they proudly told me that business would just come even if they do nothing. Sounds like Nokia, Blackberry and Motorola?

The company by now would have certain systems in place, nevertheless the issue of entrepreneurship must be addressed because most of them are becoming complacent due to past success.

So training and re-training would be most critical. I strongly recommend you to enrol you and your team for this most popular course...How to Be an Effective Manager.  For course listing, click here.