Capturing the Momentum of the Economic Recovery: Accelerate Your Growth in the Second Half of 2021

If you are a business leader, you are likely still experiencing the lingering effects and stress of the global pandemic. You might be facing supply shortages, a reduced pipeline, and staffing shortages, as well as lingering doubts from the challenges you have endured from the last year. This being said, you also likely know that the economy is recovering – spending is increasing, unemployment is dropping, and by the end of the year, the gross domestic product is even projected to reach, at least temporarily, the path that was projected for it had the pandemic never happened.

 Now, as a leader of your company, you might be in a rather challenging position. For over a year, you had to firefight – dealing with an unpredictable market in a time of international uncertainty, while also taking care of the people you employ and in your community. Now, to scale your business and capitalize on the economic recovery, you must switch mentalities – from surviving to thriving. While this might sound challenging, we have three tips on actions you can take to put yourself in the right headspace for growth in the second half of 2021.

Align to a Mission

First, to get out of your head, we recommend that you focus on something that is bigger than yourself.  At PFD, we are deeply passionate about the profound importance of having a vision and mission for your life and company, how they can clarify your thinking, and get you out of daily firefighting. By creating or reconnecting with a mission and vision for your company and your life, you can become inspired again – aligning toward where you would like to be long-term, and taking steps to get there. This can be an effective way to fight against burnout and reignite passion. If you would like to learn more about creating an effective vision and purpose for your company, check out the blog post here.

Get the Right People

Getting the right people into your organization can be the greatest opportunity and the greatest challenge that you face. On one hand, with unemployment decreasing, the market is getting more competitive to find great talent, but on the other, having the right people in the right roles will be transformational for your organization. Often, to get the right people, you have to be creative. To create a creative sourcing plan, take fifteen minutes to consider the questions below to identify potential sources of talent that fit your company culture:

1. Who do you need to talk to at your local Universities or Community Colleges?

2. Are there nonprofits aligned with your mission whose board you need to be on?

3. Are there major community events that you need to chair or be on the planning committee for?

4. Are there other well-run organizations whose leaders you need to partner with?

5. Who are the five most influential people in your industry that you should talk to?

6. Who are the five most influential people in your community that you should talk to?

7. Who do you need to buy lunch?

Focus on what you can control

Finally, while there is a lot about our businesses that are not directly in our control, like supply chains and sales pipelines, we suggest that you focus on what you can control. It is a simple concept - easier said than done. We have found that there are two things senior teams can do that will set you up for growth in the latter half of 2021.

1. Cultivate Operational Excellence

   If your pipeline is slow at the moment, perhaps you can use this season where you are less busy to cultivate operational excellence in your organization. Perhaps this means you roll out a new project management software, or any other software you have been avoiding putting into your organization because of the length of time it will take to install. Perhaps you update employee manuals, get the team into an online dashboard, or cultivate a coaching rhythm that allows you to coach your team candidly and consistently for success. Whatever the case, use this time to intentionally work on your operations so that you and your team have the capacity for growth later in the year.

2. Conduct Senior Leader Planning Sessions

   Having the right people in the right roles on your team is critical for success. These are the people, if they are A Players, that will come up with creative solutions for challenges and help reignite passion among your other senior team members. Having the right people in these key roles, and actively communicating with these people via senior leader planning sessions, will take pressure off you as the CEO and lead to better outcomes overall.

With the economic recovery already happening, right now is when we need to invest time and energy to transforming our mindset and business to scale. If you would like to inquire about senior planning sessions, please contact us here.

Recommended Reading: March 2021

As a part of our continued commitment to providing the best resources for leaders to better themselves and thrive, for our March Reading List, we recommend these two books: Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) by Verne Harnish and 3HAG WAY: The Strategic Execution System that ensures your strategy is not a Wild-Ass-Guess! by Shannon Byrne Susko.

Our theme this month: getting back to the basics.

We know 2020 and the beginning of 2021 has been challenging. We firmly believe that the tools and wisdom found in these books will help us to not only get through the last months of the pandemic, but to also take advantage of the ample opportunities in front of us so we can effectively scale our companies again.

Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) - Verne Harnish

This book was the winner of the International Book Awards for General Business and the winner of the Readers' Favorite International Book Award for Non-Fiction Business

It’s been over a decade since Verne Harnish’s best-selling book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits was first released. Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) is the first major revision of this business classic which details practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business. This book is written so everyone ― from frontline employees to senior executives ― can get aligned in contributing to the growth of a firm. Scaling Up focuses on the four major decision areas every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. The book includes a series of new one-page tools including the updated One-Page Strategic Plan and the Rockefeller Habits ChecklistTM, which more than 40,000 firms around the globe have used to scale their companies successfully ― many to $10 million, $100 million, and $1 billion and beyond – while enjoying the climb!

3HAG WAY: The Strategic Execution System that ensures your strategy is not a Wild-Ass-Guess! - Shannon Byrne Susko

Every company needs a 3HAG—a 3 Year Highly Achievable Goal! The 3HAG WAY is a prescriptive framework that takes the guessing out of your strategy and ensures that you and your whole team are confident in where you are going. It breaks your strategy down into a clear and simple picture—so clear and simple that the whole team will be able to see where the company is going and where it will end up in three years’ time. This strategic clarity will align, engage, and empower your team to make confident decisions in order to achieve your 3HAG.

You’ll find step-by-step instructions to gut out your first 3HAG while building the confidence required to execute with speed toward your goals. The core purpose of this book is to have a significant impact on CEOs, leaders, and their companies and enable them to confidently realize their goals more quickly than they thought possible. And by achieving these goals they will positively impact their families and their communities.

Whether you run a team of four, forty or 40,000, the tools and framework in this book will help you articulate your company’s strategy in simple terms and create a Strategic Execution System that works. We’re going to take each step of the strategy and break it down for you so that you know exactly how to take these steps and why they’re critical to achieving your goal.

Zingerman's Workshop

When you take time off from client work and attend workshops and invest in learning best practices, you always have to ask yourself what it is you walk away with. The ZingTrain workshop is one that I would attend over and over again. It was hosted by Zingerman's - a company that began as a deli, and has since grown into an incredible organization that spans into several industries. Why is Zingerman's so special? They have a world-class leadership and visioning strategies, and they generously share the secrets to their success. It was perfect for learning how to reinforce that all stakeholders should be engaged in all change, and how this change has to be communicated to the expanding team. Their creative approach to explaining their Vision Process helped me walk away with an amazing new approach to creating a Vision Plan. I had a great opportunity to attend a Coaches session with a room full of incredible power thinkers. The two-day session helped me gain valuable perspective, and I can’t wait to share it with my own clients. Zingerman's ideas on visioning and leadership are valuable in helping a company scale, and they are complimentary to our Scaling Up and 3HAG IP.

Zingerman’s offer a great series of books you can learn about and purchase here

The ZingTrain Workshops are perfect for your company and leadership teams. Learn how to attend their next session here.

Fortune / Gazelles International Scaling Up Summit – St. Louis 2017

This was my third Scaling Up Summit and well worth attending – for the great learning, community and inspiration of proven growth tools to share with my clients. It is exciting to be a part of the Gazelles International coaching community and bring additional resources to support high growth companies. Let me share some of the highlights from the Summit that captured my interest. 

There is a new breed of company coming to the forefront. The “Exponential Organization” uses the power of technology to scale up, and has the ability to capture much larger markets with new ways of thinking. Change is constant, but the rate of change is increasing, so how to you keep up? ”The answer is the Exponential Organization.”

Digital transformation has changed how a company evolves. No longer is human power the answer (more people, more productivity), but instead, accelerating technologies are what brings a company to it’s goal at a pace that will outperform others who continue to move on a linear course, rather than a hyper-accelerated course.

The second book that inspired me is titled "Everybody MATTERS - The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family."

Inside these pages, powerful data is provided on the strong financial results that can be had when you invest in your people and community. Bob Chapman sums it up: “Everyone wants to do better. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. People achieve good things, big and small, every day. Celebrate them. Some people wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them."