Rules to Better Business Management

Entire industries have been created around helping businesses find the best way to make decisions, and oftentimes this leads to massive bottlenecks and bureaucratic overhead. There are certainly decisions that must be made with due care and consideration, but probably not as many as you think.

In small companies, a single key stakeholder often approves everything, ensuring alignment with the organizational vision and strategy. However, as the company grows, this can lead to bottlenecks - or "approval hell". One approach that addresses this is to have multiple people responsible for a specific approval. This ensures a clearly communicated system for cross-authorization.

Sometimes a senior leader intervenes in an issue that could be handled by someone else who is well-informed and close to the problem. This intervention is not a good idea because it diverts focus from high importance strategic priorities that senior leaders should be involved in. Instead it is better for the senior leader to ask the person closest to the issue to fix the problem, that way they feel empowered and the senior leader can focus on strategy.

Don’t leave people hanging – if you are a manager, ensure you review your emails, SugarLearning, Timepro, or Intranet accounts for items from staff and colleagues to review and approve each day.

When a company is small, Annual Employee Reviews start as a fairly informal process. The head of the company might take employees for a walk, or generally have a chat about different topics.

As the company grows and more people join, 2 problems start to occur:

1. Reviews start to get longer as scope increases
2. Other managers need to start leading reviews but aren't clear on the processes

For these reasons, it's important for all the review managers to get aligned about what topics and performance indicators need to be covered, and to ensure scope is limited.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are a tool for standardizing how performance is measured at a company and ensuring employees are aware of what they need to focus on. However, everybody brings much more to their companies than just statistics; KPIs are just a conversation starter.

KPIs also lead to efficient, focused Annual Employee Reviews.

Keeping stakeholders up to date is crucial for the success of any project. Developer teams use Scrum meetings which work very well. For internal admin teams - Scrum might not work as well (e.g. Sales, Accounting). Often admin teams get sidetracked or have tasks that are not definitively measurable, therefore Scrum isn't a perfect tracker of tasks or performance.

To keep stakeholders well informed, these teams should record a monthly stakeholder video. This ensures that stakeholders are aware of the project’s progress, any challenges faced, and the plans for the upcoming month. It also provides a personal touch - stakeholders get to hear from the team directly.

Understanding why employees leave your company is crucial for improving retention strategies and fostering a positive work environment.

An Annual Employment Retrospective helps identify common trends in employee feedback, allowing you to make informed changes.

Creating an inclusive, fair, and respectful workplace is essential for the well-being and productivity of employees. Ensuring the protection of fundamental human and labour rights is not only a legal obligation but also a moral imperative that benefits the entire organization.

Supporting community and indigenous engagement initiatives is vital for fostering strong relationships with the communities in which we operate. By actively engaging with and supporting local, indigenous, small to medium-sized, and regional businesses, we can promote economic development and sustainability.