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CREATING A WINNING ENVIRONMENT

You must create an environment where your employees - your players - can develop the characteristics of a winning team. Here are some suggestions.

Step One: Clearly Define the Mission of Your Business

What is the mission of your business? If you think it is to make money, you're wrong. Sure, every business needs to make money but you're not in business just to make money. If you think you are, you will never build a winning team. In fact, you won't even stay in business very long. Years ago, Peter Drucker, the noted management writer, observed that "the mission of every business should be to find and keep customers." A business is not defined by the company's name, statutes or articles of incorporation," said Drucker. "It is defined by the want the customer satisfies when he buys a product or service. To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business."

Your first task in building a winning team is to clearly define the mission of your business. To do that, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who are (or should be) our customers?
• What need do those customers seek to satisfy when doing business with us?
• How do those customers evaluate our success in meeting that need?

Simple questions, right? But once you try to answer them, you will find they are tough questions. Even top executive in the largest and most successful businesses struggle to answer them.  Yet every successful business is successful precisely because someone found an answer to these questions.

Start by simply writing down the questions and your first response. Then revise your response until you are satisfied. Once you have your initial answers, check them out with your spouse, friends, and business associates. Ask your employees what they think. Most important, ask your customers. Pick a few of your current customers and ask them: "How can we serve you better?"  "What do you like (or dislike) about doing business with us?" You may be surprised at the answers.

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