FOUNDER SERIES S11 E5-8 - BUILDING A MEDIA BASED CONSULTING FIRM - WILLIAM EASTMAN

Today I am wearing only the E hat - Executive.

Since I started on this journey over 43 years ago, the first 2/3's of my career was consulting with the C Suite (CEO, COO, etc.) on building  a sustainable organization that could also achieve rapid growth.

S11 E5 The Self Managed Organization

Once a business gets to a certain size these two objectives seem to be mutually exclusive. Based on that experience I built a collection of business rules that when combined created high performing, fast growth companies that had long futures. This is my story.

I have a different view of things than traditional media and consulting. The lessons we learned turning around a small radio station taught me two things: I love the industry, and it has no future. 
Loving the industry satisfied a need that was decades old. Answering the question of how do we bring corporate consulting to where it will have the greatest impact - small business? It was obvious the medium of audio, broadcasted globally, could reach the 375 million small business owners employing 57% of everyone in the private sector. Finally, after years of working on finding a business model and delivery method, I had the answer.

Radio, AM in particular, is a bandwidth without a profit model. The last 3 decades of syndicating political speech and automating radio stations were spent. What if we used the radio spectrum and the internet to niche the market and provide insights and tools critical to starting, growing, and exiting a business?

What if the radio was the plumbing bringing water to your house, and the water was consulting? This different approach is instilled in everything we do at IBGR. Our principles are to provide entrepreneurs with everything they need to build generational wealth and create jobs regardless of their geographic location.

Everything we do is demand-based; what is required to start fast and successfully, what is required to scale the business with growth that can be sustained, how does the owner achieve their end game.
As serial entrepreneurs, we understand owners need to feel connected. All of us want feedback and control. We want instant response to decisions and the agility to implement. We want the ability to deploy resources efficiently and accelerate momentum to create quick wins.

At IBGR, we understand the relationship between the owner and their business, their investment and risks in this act of creation. 

S11 E6 Self Managing Organization Checklist Pt1​

1. Clarity on the End Game.
The Vision, Mission, and Values of the company are clear and enjoy universal commitment from the workforce. The real end game is what culture are you trying to create?

2. Line of Sight to Business Objectives. The yearly business Plan
This is where your use of MBO is critical. Managing By Objectives requires everyone has a piece of the action, an expressed part of this periods business objectives.

3. Ongoing Feedback on Performance and Results
Although on occasion this is feedback delivered by an immediate supervisor, to make this work feedback on their performance (progress and/or results) needs to be delivered by the system. Consider the 80/20 rule as a great place to start.

S11 E7 Self Managing Organization Checklist Pt2

4. Scheduling and Performance Autonomy
By emphasizing skill mastery and providing real time data, we expect people to act before being told. Because we know the individual or work group is competence and has accurate data to react on, we have minimize risk of uncoordinated activities.

5. Pay4Performance
The only true measure of business performance is profitability, not revenue. It doesn’t matter how much money flows in; it is all about what is left in the cigar box. If it is true about you as the owner why should it be different with anybody else. Tie all of your compensation to how people impacted the amount of money left in the bank.

6. Share the load
Get everybody into the game, the great game of business. Most people work in environments where they are forced to bowl with a sheet over the lanes. Imagine the only feedback you receive is noise without knowing how many pins were knocked down or where? And where do you throw the second ball? Why are you the only person losing sleep at night because the company is not performing?

S11 E8 Self Managing Organization Checklist Pt3

7. Who Should Work There?
I will make the case that an organization that has self-management as a goal taps into the natural yearnings of people; there is nothing unnatural here. Everybody, well almost everybody, wants to be successful and perceived as competent. This is driven by a hierarchy of needs that once met (not completely satisfied - just enough) the individual moves to a higher level - exactly what we are trying to do with the business.

8. What Is The Payoff
The payoff is simple, to create the systems and processes to make self-management possible forces extreme levels of clarity and executives who can focus on their role - the long term health of the business.