If you desire to build a great team, start inward.

This blog post and the following will share the secrets of great surfers as the basis of building an outstanding organization, even if the organization is just You, Inc.

You are part of several teams. You may be the leader of a large organization, or you may be the leader of a small group. You might be a key member of a unit at work or on a vital parent team leading your children.

Even if you don’t fall into any of these categories please realize this…you are the leader of your own personal services corporation. As the president of (your full name), Inc., you are where the buck stops and also where the process begins.

A New Approach

Globalization is linking businesses around the world. Jobs are being outsourced at a frenetic pace. Big, slow corporations are dying and being replaced with more efficient companies. The availability of information combined with the ability to virtually shop around the world has turned nearly every product into a commodity.

While the waves of this situation will pound and destroy some businesses, agile and dynamic “surfer” businesses use the power of these same changes to propel them to the top. These organizations embrace the change as an opportunity. They have a powerful curiosity about their customers, their industry and themselves. This applies to you as an individual, too. The question is, do you want to be a surfer of the change process or a victim of it?

After nine years of fast growth and sometimes out-of-control business, my partners and I reflected upon the past as we planned the upcoming year. We were excited about what we had achieved and yet we were uncomfortable with how wide the gap was between where we were and where we knew we could be. Individuals and organizations alike find themselves victims of ‘drift’.

Drift is where you stop to look at where you are in relation to where you came from and realize you have arrived more by the current you have been swept up in rather than by design. With the speed of our lives and our business, we found ourselves caught up in business drift. We set out to revitalize our business based on the SURF Strategy.

We realized we needed to remain focused on our corporate goals while improving and streamlining every aspect of our business.

Delta Framework

We looked at various reengineering and corporate improvement programs and initiatives like Six Sigma™ used by companies like GE^®. Unfortunately, after evaluation, we found them to be impractical and inconsistent with our entrepreneurial DNA. Reflecting on how vital this was to our business, we decided to turn our entrepreneurial creativity inward…so we created our own program.

Delta in mathematical terms means the change or difference. If a variable in a process changes, the change in the result is called the delta. In a math equation, seven minus five leads to a delta of two. Delta represents change by design. It is a transition from where you are now to where you desire to be. Now I pass the foundation of that program on to you.

Developing Your Battle Plan

Every military operation starts with the outcome and works backward. The vision of the end result lets planners apply their creativity in designing and employing big picture strategies. Once the strategies are in place, they determine the tactics and specific action steps necessary to achieve the goals. Broken down, it looks like this:

1. Develop the overall plan and big picture first.
2. Figure out the highest-leverage strategies to get you to your goal in the most direct way.
3. Support your strategy with a tactical plan of action.

This post is an excerpt from the book Carpe Aqualis! written by Kahuna Business Group’s Founder/ CEO Frank F. Lunn. There is much more to come next week as we dive deeper into the Delta Framework.

Interested in learning more about how Kahuna Accounting can help you grow your business? Schedule a strategy call with Kahuna Accounting and we can discuss best practices for bookkeeping, profit, and growth!