Business competence refers to the collective set of capabilities, including knowledge, skills, dedication, mindset and commitment, which allow you to be effective in a job or situation.
How secure and confident do you feel about your level of business competence and your ability to execute in all sorts of business scenarios?
How secure and confident do you feel about your leadership’s and management’s business competence?
There’s nothing wrong about coming to terms with areas of overlap and redundancy and defining gaps in capabilities and mindset in your organization. As long as you have made your employees feel secure and comfortable with being invited to participate in this conversation. As long as your business competency as a leader isn’t in doubt.
As long as you are prepared to listen.
Working together with various levels of management from shop floor to C-Suite can help your company become more committed to creating a better tomorrow for everyone. That is your healthy organizational goal: when everyone, clearly, is committed to having each other’s backs.
Helping your employees (including yourself) achieve business competence can be a major factor in catalyzing your business to a new level of productivity and profitability.
While there is a lot of “leadership” talk being talked these days, providing opportunities to continue your employee’s education once in the workplace, may be the first “thumbs up” they’ve received since leaving high school. Yes, I just said high school.
While companies may take a look at professional development based on pay grade, they marginalize or minimize the importance of some of the greatest assets of their organization: the people who work on the lines, on the loading dock and in an administrative or customer service function.
Some of these folks were told when they were in high school that they weren’t good students. They believed the teachers who doled out this pronouncement. Now they are living out what they believe is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When you acknowledge your employees by “buying in” to developing their business competence, they become more invested in your company. Sometimes it is a matter of a certification in quality or CNC-machining, which can be their springboard to a bigger educational goal. Sometimes it is a matter of letting them know that they are no longer invisible within your organization.
If this task seems daunting, perhaps it is time as a leader or manager for you to examine your own level of business competence as well. The knowledge and skills that got you to where you are today, well, may be insufficient to lead your company into tomorrow.
A bit of healthy leadership introspection goes a long way, especially when times are good and you have a positive revenue stream. Why wait until you discover your business is in crisis mode?
What is the first order of collective business competence that you will address next month?
Babette N. Ten Haken is a management strategist and team-building leadership coach. She helps teams, startups and businesses who wrestle with unpredictable revenue streams. Her Workshops and Playbooks create more productive and profitable teams in healthier organizations. Her Playbook on leadership and business strategies, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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