4 fundamentals for businesses and leaders to succeed

What are the fundamentals of how a business can address its challenges? In a recent commentary for Crain’s Forum, Stephanie Banchero of the Joyce Foundation looked at this question for Chicago Public Schools. She came up with four crucial steps:

• Plan for financial stability.

• Embrace the data.

• Let research be a guide.

• Let the school principals lead.

These are great ideas, not only for the school system but for any business. Let’s look at them in more detail.

Plan for financial stability. When I was in business school, one of the key lessons we learned was “cash is king.” You can have rapid growth, investors may be giving you piles of money, you may have a great innovative idea, but financial stability is the name of the game. Without it, you’re probably going to be in big trouble pretty quickly.

Embrace the data. This is the key to accountability. Design valid metrics to measure what matters, and then pay attention to them. 

Let research be a guide. Find out what has worked in other businesses. Listen to smart people.  Investigate what your customers are looking for. Pay attention to the competition. Keep your eye on economic and political trends. Sure beats trusting your gut.

Let the managers who are closest to the customer lead. In the case of schools, that’s the principals. They know their staff, their students, their neighborhood. They’re in a much better position to make many of the key decisions than the folks in the downtown office. I’ve learned from my work with clients across many industries that this is true across the board. Many key business decisions are best made at the manager level.

Whether you’re leading a huge, complex school system, a large corporation or a small business, these principles make sense. If you’d like to learn more about how to put them into action, contact me at ggolden@gailgoldenconsulting.com.