(The CEO wrote the following memo to his entire management team)
The cartoon character Pogo stated “Having lost sight of our objective, we redoubled our efforts.” There seems to be some confusion about where we are going and what we should be focusing on. I see that there is a lot of activity (a good thing) and yet we are not making our numbers: sales, margins or profits (not such a good thing). Here we are at the end of the quarter and our plan is not being met. The Website Marketing results of our planning have so far failed to materialize.
Let us, collectively, take just a few minutes to review. At our planning session for the year we reviewed our vision. We are on the path to exceed our numbers for last year. I believe that we (the collective group of managers) have articulated the goals to everyone working here.
My first question to you is this: how often do you reinforce what our company goals are to each of your employees? Do they know the results?
At that same planning session we updated our mission statement, and you, working with your staff, created a mission statement for your department. To remind you, the mission states what your organization does. Do you see the reports of their efforts?
My second question to you is: how often do you reinforce what our company mission statement is and how often do you review what your department mission statement is?
In order to be successful, to achieve our goals, each of us must have the right attitude. Leaders, and you are one in this company, control their attitudes. Success is based more on mental attitude than mental capability. You make yourself with your disposition. Attitude is shown in tone of voice, facial expressions, handwriting, posture, your handshake, your voicemail message, decision-making, delegating, and management style. Attitude always seeps through to those that you work with.
