Get Back on Track, By Bob Prosen

When great leaders and companies get off track they recognize the problems and get back on track quickly.

When you stray, here’s how you get back on track and into the winner’s circle.

You need to reaffirm the strategy and the organization’s top priorities, put the right people in the right jobs, with clear objectives and measurements to track performance.

Assign ownership to people who know the business even better than you do, and require them to focus on the significant few objectives. Too often, companies lose focus because they take on too many responsibilities and spread themselves too thin.

Be clear about what you’re asking people to do so that you eliminate false starts. Give them objectives derived from deep thinking, not a half-baked idea. When you communicate clearly, make requests of people, and get commitments, you will make progress.

Have a measurement system in place to track progress on all of your top objectives. These measurements act as an early-warning system that allows the organization to reprioritize and take corrective action when the landscape changes.

Discover the root cause of every problem so that you don’t waste valuable resources fighting the same problems time and time again. This inefficiency generates unnecessary costs and prevents companies from focusing on what’s most important to move them forward and accelerate profitability.

NEXT WEEK: Important questions to ask yourself!

Bob Prosen is president and CEO of The Prosen Center for Business Advancement®, where he teaches business leaders how to rapidly increase performance and profits. He is listed in The International Who’s Who of Entrepreneurs. Visit his website at www.bobprosen.com.

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